Qass 
Book 



6/ ^ 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIAf 



BY 



GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 



" I am a part of all that I have met, 
, Yet all Experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades 
Forever and forever, when I move." 

Tennyson. 

" Gottes ist der Orient, 
Gottes ist der Occident, 
Nord-und siidliches Gelande 
Ruht im Frieden seiner Hande. 




Goethe. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

18 67. 




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS, 

In the Clerk's OlSee of the District Court of the Unitei States for 
the Southern District of New York. 



By transfQi 

JUN 12 1915 



TO THE PACHA. 



My dear Friend, — 

In making you the Pacha of two tales, I confess with the 
Syrians, that a friend is fairer than the roses of Damascus, 
and more costly than the pearls of Omman. 

You, of all men, will not be surprised by these pages, for 
you shared with me the fascination of novelty in those 
eldest lands, — which interpreted to us both that pleasant 
story of Kaphael. 

When his friend, Marc Antonio, discovered him engaged 
upon the Sistine picture and exclaimed, 

— " Cospe^iJo / another Madonna f" ' * 

Kaphael gravely answered, _ . 

— '•'■Amico mio, my friend, were all artists to paint her 
portrait fore\ei, they could never exhaust her beauty." 

New York, i'arch, 1852. 



*' With a hoste of furious fancies, 
Whereof I am Commander, 
With a burning epear, 
And a horse of the ayr, 
To the wilderness I wander." 

Mad Tom of Bedlam. 

- Why should we be of the tribe of Manasseh, when we can 
wander with Esau ? Why should we kick against the pricks, when 
we can walk on roses ? Why should we be owls, when we can be 
eagles?" Keats. 

" For us the winds do blow, 
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow : 

Nothing we see but means our good, 

As our delight, or as our treasure. 
The whole is either our cupboard of food, 

Or cabinet of pleasure." 

George Herbert. 

" And they three passed over the white sands between the rocVs, 
silent as the shadows." 

Coleridge, 



CONTENTS. 



THE DESERT. 



CHATTER PAGE 

I. — GrA-nd Caiko 1 

II. — Depaeture 16 

III. — OUTSKIRTa 22 

IV. — Encampinq 29 

v.— The Camel 35 

VI. — The Desert blossoms 42 

VII. — Romance 47 

VIII. — Among the Bedoueen 57 

IX. — Into the Desert 63 

X. — Mirage 68 

XI. — Under the Syrian Stars 76 

XII.— A Truce 82 

Xni.— Oasis 89 

XIV.— Mishap 94 

XV. — Adventure 99 

XVI.— Arma Virumque Cano 106 

XVII.— Quarantine 116 

JERUSALEM. 

I. — Palm Sunday 133 

II. — Mehemet Ali 139 

III. — Advancing 151 

IV. — Jerusalem or Rome ? 158 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAQH 

V. — The Joy OF THE "Whole Eaiith 165 

VI. — 0 Jerusalem ! 172 

VII. — Within the Walls 177 

VIII. — Bethlehem 187 

IX. — Life in Death 192 

X. — On THE House-top 200 

XI.— Idolatry 203 

Xn.— The Dead Sea 218 

XIII.— Addio KhadraI 233 

XrV.— Coming Away 242 

XV.— ESDRAELON 253 

XVL— Ave Maria! 259 

XVII.— Summer 266 

XVIIL— Acre 270 

XIX. — Sea of Galilee 276 

XX.— Panias 281 

DAMASCUS. 

I. — The Eye of the East 291 

II. — Exit Verde Giovanb 297 

III. — The House Beautiful 300 

IV. — HouRis 304 

v.— Bazaars 310 

VL— Cafes 320 

VII. — Uncle Kuhleborn 326 

Vin.— Exodus 334 

IX. — Baalbeo 340 

X. — Nunc Dmhttis 346 



THE DESERT. 



Ik 



I. 

GRAND CAIRO. 

*' The camels are ready," said the commander, 
our dragoman. 

And I turned for a last glimpse of Cairo, from the 
lofty window of the hotel over the Uzbeekeeyah, or 
public garden. The sun was sinking toward the 
Pyramids, and my eyes, that perceived their faint 
outline through the warm air, were fascinated for the 
last time by their grandeur and mystery. 

I held a letter in my hand. It was dated several 
weeks before in Berlin, and its incredible tales of 
cold, thin twilight for day, of leafless trees, and of 
bitter and blasting winds, were like ice in the sher- 
bet of the oriental scene my eyes were draining. 

Beneath the balcony was the rounded fullness of 
acacia groves, and, glancing along the lights and 
shadows of the avenues, I marked the costumes 
whose picturesqueness is poetry. The glaring 
white walls of plaster palaces, and the hareems of 
pachas rose irregularly beyond, cool with dark 
green blinds, and relieving the slim minarets that 



2 



THE HOWADJI IN SYKIA. 



played, fountains of grace, in the brilliant air. It 
was a great metropolis, but silent as Venice. Only 
the ha-ha of the donkey-boys, the guttural growl 
of the camels, or the sharp crack of the runner's 
whip that precedes a carriage, jarred the pensive 
silence of the sun. 

I read another passage in the wintry letter I held, 
and remembered Berlin, Europe, and the North, as 
spirits in paradise recall the glacial limbo of the 
Inferno. 

— "The camels are ready," said the sententious 
commander. 

" Yes," answered the Howadji, and stepped out 
upon the balcony. 

The Arabian poets celebrate the beauty of Cairo, 
*' Mur, without an equal, the mother of the world, 
the superb town, the holy city, the delight of the 
imagination, greatest among the great, whose splen- 
dor and opulence made the Prophet smile." 

Nor the Prophet only. For even to Frank and 
Infidel eyes it is the most beautiful of Eastern 
cities. 

It is not so purely oriental as Damascus, nor can 
it rival the splendor of the Syrian capital, as seen 
from a distance ; but, architecturally, Cairo is the 
triumph of the Arabian genius. It woos the eye and 
admiration of the stranger with more than Muslim 



GRAND CAIRO. 3 

propriety. Damascus is a dream of beauty as you 
approach it. But the secret charm of that beauty, 
when you are within the walls, is discovered only 
by penetrating deeper and farther into its exquisite 
courts, and gardens, and interiors, as you must strip 
away the veils and clumsy outer robes, to behold the 
beauty of the Circassian or Georgian slave. 

Prince SoltikofF, a Russian Sybarite, who winters 
upon the Nile as Englishmen summer upon the 
Rhine, agreed that to the eye of the stranger in its 
streets, Cairo was unsurpassed. 

"'But Ispahan?" I suggested: for the Prince 
chats of Persia as men gossip of Paris, and illumi- 
nates his conversation with the glory of the Ganges. 

"Persia has nothing so fair," replied the Prince. 
" Leave Ispahan and Teheran unvisited, save by your 
imagination, and always take Cairo as the key-note 
of your Eastern recollections." 

It is built upon the edge of the desert, as other 
cities stand upon the sea-shore. The sand stretches 
to the v/alls, girdling " the delight of the imagina- 
tion" with a mystery and silence profounder than 
that of the ocean. 

It is impossible not to feel here, as elsewhere in 
the East, that the national character and manners 
are influenced by the desert, as those of maritime 
_ races by the sea. This fateful repose, this strange 



4 



THE HOWADJI IN SYlllA. 



stillness, this universal melancholy in men's aspects, 
and in their voices, as you note them in quiet con- 
versation, or in the musical pathos of the muezzin's 
cry — the intent but composed eagerness with which 
they listen to the wild romances of the desert, for 
which even the donkey-boy pauses, and stands, lean- 
ing upon his arms across his beast, and following in 
imagination the fortunes of Aboo Seyd, or the richer 
romances of the Thousand and One Nights — all this 
is of the desert — this is its silence articulated in 
art and life. 

The bazaars and busy streets ot Cairo are as much 
thronged as the quays of Naples. Through the 
narrow ways swarms a motley multitude, either 
walking or bestriding donkeys, but the wealthier and 
official personages upon foot. The shouts of the 
donkey-boys are incessant, and when a pacha's com- 
ing is announced by the imperative crack of the long 
whip, flourished by an Arab runner in short white 
drawers and tarboosh or red cap, the excitement and 
confusion in a street which a carriage almost chokes, 
become frenzied. The conceited camels groping 
through the crowd, are jammed and pushed against 
the horses ; the donkestrians are flattened sidew^ays 
in the same manner. Pedlers of all kinds crowd to 
the wall, there is a general quarrelling and scolding 
as if every individual were aggrieved that any other 



GRAND CAIRO. 



5 



should presume to be in the way, while suddenly in 
the midst, through the lane of all this lazy and 
cackling life, rumbles the huge carriage, bearing a 
white-bearded, fat Turk to the council or the 
hareem. Only the little donkeys stand then for 
democracy, and persist in retaining their tails where, 
for purposes of honorable obeisance to the dignitary, 
their heads should be, and receive a slashing cut for 
their inflexible adherence to principles. 

Through this restless crowd in the dim, unpaven, 
high-walled streets of Cairo, strings of camels per- 
petually pass, threading the murmurous city life with 
the desert silence. They are like the mariners in 
tarpaulins and pea-jackets,, who roll through the 
streets of sea-ports and assert the sea. For the slow, 
soft tread of the camel, his long, swaying movement, 
his amorphous and withered frame, and his level- 
lidded, unhuman, and repulsive eyes, like the eyes 
of demons, remind the Cairene of the desert, and 
confirm the mood of melancholy in his mind. 

The donkey is the feet and carriage of the 
Cairene. 

Old Beppo, the legless beggar of the Spanish 
steps in Rome, given to fame by Hans Christian 
Andersen, in his Improvisatore, was oriental in 
many ways, but most in the luxury of the donkey, 
with which he indulged himself. And, practically, 



6 



THE HOWADJI IN SYKIA. 



the Cairenes might be all legless Beppos. With 
the huge red slippers dangling at the sides of the 
tottering little beasts, the toes turned upward in 
an imbecile manner, and gliding at right-angles with 
the animal just above the ground — the sad-eyed, 
solemn Cairene v/ould hardly enamour the least fas- 
tidious of houris, should he so caracole to the gates 
of paradise. 

The donkeys are like large dogs, and of easy 
motion. Each is attended by a boy, who batters 
and punches him behind. Your cue is resignation. 
You are only the burden borne. Nor is it consonant 
with your dignity to treat as a horse an animal that 
scarcely holds your feet above the ground, and that 
occasionally tumbles from under you, leaving you 
standing in a picturesque bazaar, the butt of Muslim 
youth. 

And wo to you if on your cockle-shell of a 
donkey you encounter the full-freighted galleon of 
a camel. Dismount, stop, fly — or a bale of Aleppo 
gold-stuffs or brilliant carpets from Bagdad, surging 
along upon the camel, will dash you and your don- 
key, miserable wrecks, against the sides of the bazaar. 

— " The camels are ready." 

" Tdih, tdih Mteir, good, very good, commander, 
but bear a moment longer, while I gaze finally from 
the balcony and remember Cairo." 



GEAND CAIRO. 



7 



You will go daily to the bazaar, because its pic- 
turesque suggestions are endless, and because the 
way leads you by the spacious mosques, broadly 
striped with red and blue, and because in the shaded 
pilenceof the interior you will see the strange spec- 
tasle of a house of God made also a house of man. 
There congregate the poor and homeless, and ply 
their trades. At nightfall, as some rich pilgrim 
turns away, he orders the sakka, or water-carrier, 
to distribute the contents of his water-skin among 
the poor. In the silence, and under the stars, as he 
pours the water into the wooden bowls of the 
beggars, the sakka exclaims, " Hasten, 0 thirsty, 
to the ways of God!" — then breaks into a mournful 
singing — " Paradise and forgiveness be the lot of him 
who gave you this water." 

By day and night, a fountain plays in the centre 
of the court, singing and praising God. The chil- 
dren play with it, and sleep upon the marble pave- 
ment. The old men crone in the shadow and 
moulder in the sun. The birds flutter and fly, and 
alight upon the delicate points of the ornaments, 
and wheeling, the pavement ripples in their waving 
shadow. Five times a day the muezzin calls 
from the minaret, " God is great, come to prayer," 
and at midnight — " Prayer is better than sleep," 
and at daybreak — Blessing and peace be upon 



8 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA 



thee, O Prophet of God, O Comely of Counte- 
nance !" 

You pass on to the bazaars. 

No aspect of life in any city is so exciting to the 
imagination as the oriental bazaars. They are nar- 
row streets, walled by the lofty houses from whose 
fronts project elaborate lattices, and on each side is 
a continuous line of shops, which are small square 
cells in the houses, entirely open to the street, and 
raised two or three feet above it. Over the whole, 
between the house-tops, is stretched a canopy of 
matting, shutting out the sky. 

In the little niches, or shops, surrounded by their 
wares, sit the turbanned merchants, silent or chatting 
solemnly, smoking and sipping coffee, or bending and 
muttering in prayer. 

A soft, mellow shadow permeates the space, or 
golden glints of sunlight flash through the rents in 
the matting above. There is no noise but the 
hushed murmuring of a crowd, sometimes the sharp 
oath of a donkey-driver, or the clear, vibrating call 
of the muezzin. 

As we move slowly through the bazaar, and our 
donkey-boy shouts imperatively, " 0 old man, de- 
part, depart : 0 maiden, fly, the Howadji comes, he 
comes, he comes" — the merchants scan us gravely 
through the clouds that curl from their chibouques. 



GRAND CAIRO. 



9 



But the eyes of one among them sparkle graci- 
ously. 

It is a friend of the commander's who purposes 
to take gold from the unbelievers, and at his niche 
we alight, and the old men and maidens fly no 
longer. The merchant spreads for us a prayer- 
carpet from Bagdad, or a Persian rug, upon which 
we seat ourselves, while chibouques are lighted, and 
a small, soft-eyed Arab boy runs to the neighboring 
cafe, and returns with rich, sweet coffee. 

" The Howadjiare Ingleez ?" is the amicable pre- 
lude of business. 

" No. The Howadji are not Ingleez, but Ameri- 
cani." 

It is a terra incognita to the swarthy Turk, who 
fancies it is some island in the Red Sea, or a bar- 
baric dependence of Bagdad. 

The opposite neighbor hails his brother merchant 
in an unknown dialect — unknown to the ear, but 
the suspicious-heart interprets its meaning—" Allah 
is Allah, 0 my brother ; praise God who has this 
day delivered goodly fish into thy net." The lazy 
loiterers gather around the spot. When they are too 
many, the commander suddenly swears a vehement 
oath, and disperses the rabble with his kurbash, or 
hippopotamus whip. 

The merchant, gravely courteous, reveals his 



10 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



treasures, little dreaming that they are inestimable 
to the eyes that contemplate them. His wares 
make poets of his customers, who are sure that the 
Eastern poets must have passed life in an endless 
round of shopping. 

Here are silk stuffs from Damascus and Aleppo ; 
cambric from the district of Nablous, near the well 
of Jacob ; gold and silvej: threads from Mount Le- 
banon ; keffie, the Bedoueen handkerchiefs from 
Mecca, and fabrics of delicate device from Damascus 
blend their charm with the Anadolian carpets of 
gorgeous tissue. The fruits of Hamas hang beyond — 
dried fruits and blades from Celo Syria — pistachios 
from Aleppo, and over them strange Persian rugs. 

The eye feasts upon splendor. The wares are 
often clumsy, inconvenient, and unshapely. The 
coarsest linen is embroidered with the finest gold. 
It is a banquet of the crude elements of beauty, un- 
refined by taste. It is the pure pigment un worked 
into the picture. 

But the contemplation of these articles, of name 
and association so alluring, and the calm curiosity of 
the soft eyes, that watch you in the dimness of the 
Bazaar, gradually soothe your mind like sleep, and 
you sit by the merchant in pleasant reverie. You 
buy as long and as much as you can. Have rhymes, 
.'ind colors, and fancies prices ? 



GRAND CAIEO. 



11 



The courteous merchant asks fabulous sums for 
his wares, and you courteously offer a tenth or a 
twentieth of his demand. He looks grieved, and 
smokes. You smoke, and look resigned. 

" Have the Howadji reflected that this delicate 
iinen fabric (it is coarse crash) comes from Bagdad, 
upon camels, over the desert?" 

They have, indeed, meditated that flict. 

*'Are these opulent strangers aware that the sum 
they mention would plunge an unhappy merchant 
into irretrievable ruin ?" 

The thought severs the heart-strings of the opu- 
lent strangers. But are their resources rivers, whose 
sands are gold ? 

— And the soft-eyed Arab boy is dispatched for 
fresh coffee. 

\V e wear away the day in this delightful traffic. 
It has been a rhetorical tilt. We have talked, and 
lived, and bought, poetry, and at twilight our treas- 
ures follow us to the hotel. 

We discover that we have procured oriental gar- 
ments that we cannot wear, which are probably 
second-hand, and impart a peculiar odor, making us 
wonder how the plague smells. We have various 
beautiful caps, that heat our heads — choice Turkish 
elippers that tumble us down stairs — Damascus 
blades that break with a little bending — spices and 



12 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



odors of blessed Araby that we surreptitiously eject 
at back windows — and gold-threaded napkins of 
Arabian linen, that let our fingers through in the 
using. 

Yet for these oriental luxuries we have not paid 
more than a dozen times their value ; and when, 
after a surfeit of sentiment, did poets ever awake 
without the headache? 

The solemn pomp of this oriental shopping, how- 
ever, is no less pathetic than poetic. The merchant 
biggies in phrases of exquisite imagery, which may 
be, with him, only hacknied forms of words ; but are 
the sadder for that reason. It is not difficult to infer 
the characteristic influences of a people, w^hose na- 
tural speech is poetry. And the pathos is in the 
constant reference of this style of speech to a corre- 
sponding life. 

Yet the Arabian genius has never attained that 
life. The Thousand and One Nights are its highest 
literary, the Kingdom of the Caliphs its most sub- 
stantial political, and Islam its best religious, 
achievement. That genius creates no longer, and 
for the modern Muslim, only the traditions of these 
things remain. The poets at the cafes tell the old 
tales. The splendors of the Caliphat flash, a boreal 
brilliance, over an unreal past ; and Islam waiies 
and withers in its sunny mosques. 



GRAND CAIEO. 



13 



Thus oriental life is an echo and a ghost. Even 
its ludicrousness is relieved and sobered by its neces- 
sary sadness. You are pursued by the phantom of 
unachieved success ; you stumble among ruined 
opportunities ; it is a sphere unoccupied, a body un- 
informed. 

Strangely and slowly gathers in your mind the 
conviction that the last inhabitants of the oldest land 
have thus a mysterious sympathy of similarity v^ith 
the aborigines of the youngest. 

For what more are these orientals than sumptuous 
savages ? 

As the Indian dwells in primeval forests, whose 
soil teems with mineral treasure, in whose rocks and 
trees are latent temples greater than Solomon's and 
the Parthenon, and statues beyond the Greek ; in 
whose fruits are the secrets of trade, commerce, and 
the extremest civilization, and who yet gets from 
the trees but a slight canoe, and from the earth but 
a flint, and from all the infinite suggestions of na- 
ture, nothing but a picturesque speech, — so lives the 
Oriental, the pet of natural luxury, in a golden 
air, atihe fountains of History, and Art, and Reli- 
gion ; and yet the thinnest gleanings of stripped 
fields would surpass his harvest. 

The likeness follows into their speech and man- 
ner. The Indian still bears with him the air of si 



14 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



lence and grandeur that Inheres in his birth-place, 
and in the influences of his life. The sun, and the 
wind, and the trees, have still their part in him, and 
assert their child. They shine, and blow, and wave, 
through his motions and his words. Like a Queen's 
idiot boy, he has the air of royalty. 

Nor does the Oriental fail in dignity and repose. 
His appearance satisfies your imagination no less 
than your eye. No other race has his beauty of 
countenance, and grace of costume ; nowhere else is 
poetry the language of trade. His gravity becomes 
tragic, then, when it seems to you a vague con- 
sciousness of inadequacy to his position, the wise si- 
lence of a witless man. 

— We ha,ve, then, a common mother, and the 
silence of the western is kin to that of the eastern 
sky. 

Have we sailed so far. Pacha, to stand in the bal- 
cony looking over the Arabian metropolis, and smil- 
ing with the Prophet at its splendor and opulence, 
to discover that our musings are the same as in the 
crest of a primeval pine, or on the solitary mound ot 
a prairie ? 

*' The camels are ready — ^" 

"Yes, commander, and so are the Howadji." 

The sun was nearing the pyramids, and doubly 
beautiful in the afternoon, *'the delight of the ima- 



GEAND CAIRO. 



15 



gmation" lay silent before us, a superb slave, com- 
pelling our admiration. I lingered and lingered 
upon the little balcony. Ha-ha, said the donkey- 
boys beneath, and I leaned over and saw a hareem 
trotting along. The camels lay under the trees, and 
a turbanned group, like the wise men at the manger, 
in old pictures, awaited our departure with languid 
curiosity. 

The Pacha descended the stairs, and I followed 
him, just as the commander announced for the 
twelfth time — 

*' The camels are ready." 



II. 



DEPARTURE. 

The camels lay patiently under the trees before 
the door, quietly ruminating. Our caravan consisted 
of seven, four of which had been loaded and sent 
forward with their drivers, and were to halt at a 
village beyond the city, the other three awaited the 
pleasure of the Howadji and the commander. 

If the mystery of the desert had inspired any 
terror in our minds, surely the commander presented 
at that moment ample consolation. 

For several days before our departure, the astute 
Mohammed had indulged in stories of desert dangers, 
and, when he conceived that our minds were suffi- 
ciently exercised, he began his overtures for the 
purchase of swords, guns, pistols, and weapons of 
all kinds and calibres, to secure us against the perils 
of the wilderness. The Pacha had brought a gun 
from Malta, and Nero had bequeathed me a pie- 
knife, of goodly strength and size, which had done 
admirable execution upon the pigeon-pasties of iho 
Nile, for which the gun had furnished the material. 



DEPARTUEE. 



17 



This was the sum of our arsenal, and in con- 
sideration of the fact that we should hardly be 
attacked by any force whose numbers would 
not insure victory, it seemed useless to provide 
more. 

But the alarmed commander, having testified that 
there was but one God, and that Mohammed was 
his prophet, farther testified that one gun and a 
pie-knife were flagrantly insufficient against the 
Bedoueen of the desert. The Howadji, therefore, 
yielded, and the commander, having increased my 
store by a pair of English pocket-pistols, gave me a 
bag of bullets which I placed at the bottom of my 
portmanteau, and a box of percussion caps which I 
requested him to carry. 

So we descended, armed for the desert. 

The Pacha carried his gun, and I was girded over 
the shoulder with a strap holding the pistols ; but 
it was so inconveniently short, that my left arm 
could hardly hang straight. We wore upon our 
heads, wide-awakes or slouched beavers, wreathed 
with a heavy fold of linen, which " the opulent 
strangers" had been assured was the work of Persian 
looms, and misgiving that the sun would be more 
formidable than the Bedoueen, I concealed a pair of 
blue wire-gauze goggles in my pocket. 

For the rest, we differed little from any gentle- 



18 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



men mounting their horses for an evening ride. But 
the commander was a spectacle. 

He was a walking arsenal. The mild Muslim 
was swathed in steel bandages of cutlasses, knives 
of various sanguinary devices, and shining tubes of 
pistols. The belts of these weapons entangled him 
in crimson net-work, and even had the scabbards of 
the swords and daggers not been cased in leather 
and inextricably knotted to their handles, so that in 
no extremity of peril could he ever have drawn a 
blade — yet he was so burdened and bound that he 
could neither have wielded a weapon nor have run 
away. As the latter was the commander's great 
military movement, I was as much perplexed as 
concerned at his appearance, until I reflected that 
he would conduct his retreat and escape with his 
many machines of war upon the back of his camel. 

I confess a cei^ain degree of satisfaction in the 
contemplation of this array of defensive appliances. 
In a sudden crisis it seemed only necessary that all 
parties should rush upon the commander, as roused 
soldiers to their stacks of arms, and liberally fur- 
nished from his exhaustless stores, give endless 
battle to any foe. 

He was a diamond edition of the Turkish army. 
It were unfair to suppose that he had not adjusted 
his means to his conscious power, and what on- 



DEPARTURE. 



19 



slauglits and carnage were implied in his appearance ! 
What unfought Marathons and symbolical sieges of 
Troy were moving, in his awful accoutrements, 
around the court of Shepherd's Hotel ! Regarding 
the air of the movement, you would have sworn a 
union of Ajax and Achilles — looking in the eye, you 
would have owned Ulysses, but surveying the sur- 
prising whole, nothing less than impregnable Troy 
and all catapultic Greece had satisfied your fancy. 

— It was time to mount, and the farewells must 
be spoken. 

You, Nera, have not forgotten that last Cairene 
afternoon, nor the sorrow that the charmed evenings 
of the Nile were not to be renewed upon the desert, 
nor the warm wishes, that like gentle gales, should 
waft your barque to Greece. Neither have the 
Howadji lost from memory the figure that stood in 
the great sunny door, waving a slow hand of fare- 
well, nor the eyes that looked, not without haziness 
and tearful mist, toward the uncertainty of the 
desert. 

Addio, Nera ! 

With the words trembling upon my tongue, and 
half looking back and muttering last words, I laid 
my left hand carelessly upon the back of the re- 
cumbent camel to throw myself leisurely into the 
seat. 



20 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



I had seen camels constantly for two months, and 
had condemned them as the slowest and most con- 
ceited of brutes. I had supposed an elephantme 
languor in every motion, and had anticipated a 
luxurious cradling over the desert in their rocking 
gait, for to the exoteric eye their movement is 
imaged by the lazy swell of summer waves. 

The saddle is a wooden frame, with a small up- 
right stake, both in front and behind. Between 
these stakes, and upon the frame, are laid the blan- 
kets, carpets, and other v^oollen conveniences for 
riding. Over all is thrown the brilliant Persian rug. 
The true method of mounting is to grasp the stakes 
in each hand, and to swing yourself rapidly and 
suddenly into the seat, while the camel driver — if 
you are luxurious and timid — holds his foot upoji 
the bent fore-knee of the camel. Once in the seat 
you must cling closely, through the three convulsive 
spasms of rising and righting, two of which jerk you 
violently forward and one backward. 

This is a very simple mystery. But I was igno- 
rant, and did not observe that no camel driver was 
at the head of my beast. In fact, I only observed 
that the great blue cotton umbrella, covered with 
white cloth, and the two water jugs dangling from 
the rear stake of my saddle, were a ludcrious com 
bination of luxury and necessity, and ready to 



DEPARTURE. 



21 



mount, I laid my hand as carelessly and leisurely 
upon the front stake as if my camel had been a 
cow. 

But scarcely had my right foot left the earth on 
its meditative way to the other side of the saddle, 
than the camel snorted, threw back his head, and 
sprang up as nimbly as a colt. 

I, meanwhile, was left dangling with the blue 
cotton umbrella, and the water jugs at the side, 
several feet from the ground, and made an abor- 
tive grasp at the rear stake. But I only clutched 
the luxuries, and down we fell, Howadji, pocket- 
pistols, umbrella, and water jugs in a confused heap. 

The good commander arrived at the scene as soon 
as the arsenal permitted, and swore fiercely at the 
Arabs from the midst of his net-work of weapons. 
Then, very blandly, he instructed me in the mystery 
of camel-climbing, and in a few minutes we were on 
the way to Jerusalem 



III. 



OUTSKIETS. 

With the first swing of tl:ie camel, Egypt and the 
Kile began to recede. With this shuttle the desert 
was to be woven into the web of my life. To share 
that moment's feeling, sympathetic reader, you must 
recall the change of horses at La Storta, the last post 
to Rome, and gild the sensation with oriental 
glory. 

We paced through the outskirts of the city. The 
streets were narrow and dirty as we approached 
the gate, although they wound under beautiful lat- 
tices, and palms drooped over the roofs. Sore-eyed 
children played around the houses. Barbers were 
shaving men who kneeled and rested their heads in 
the barber's lap. Flabby w^omen, in draggling, 
coarse v^ils, and scant, filthy garments, loitered by, 
with trays of thin cakes upon their heads. 

Through the grated windows of the mosque, we 
saw the silent devotee steeped in the red light of 
the westering sun, and dreaming in his squalid rags, 
which the sun's golden finger touched into a gor- 



OUTSKIKTS. 



23 



geous robe, of the paradise where " the comely of 
countenance" should, even so, surfeit his lean soul 
with, bliss. 

*' For thus," says quaint old Burton of the Sara- 
cen, " he fats himself with future joys." 

We rode superior to the scene, upon our lofty 
camels. They swayed gently along, and occasion 
ally swung their heads and long necks awkwardly 
aside to peer through the lattices, and suffer their 
eyes to browse upon hidden beauty, as the " large, 
calm eyes" of the sea-snake feed upon the mermaid, 
in Tennyson's poem. 

The old silence and sadness, whose spell I had 
constantly felt in Cairo, brooded over " the superb 
town, the holy city," to the last. As we passed 
out of the gate into the desert, no hope called after 
us. 

The suburbs of " the mother of the world" are 
tombs. In the desert, death beleaguers the city, 
and you can well fancy that the melancholy genius 
of the people seeks to propitiate the awful enemy 
by these stately and solitary .buildings, grouped be- 
yond the walls in the sand. Even as Andromeda, 
the king's own child, was exposed to the common 
foe, so, upon these wild sands, instinctive nature 
seems to aim at appeasing the hereditary enemy, 
by the beautiful persuasion of art. These tombs 



24 



THE HOWADJl IN SYRIA. 



are of the finest oriental architecture. They hold 
the ashes of sultans and caliphs whose names are re- 
membered by nothing else. They are mosques no 
less than tombs, and travellers, leaving or entering 
the city, pause in them to pray. 

But their austerity is unrelieved by the gladness 
of any green thing. Over our western graves, we 
love the sweet consolations of nature ; and the year, 
changing from flower to fading leaf, in gracious ima- 
gery renews forever the mystery of life, and, with 
almost human sympathj^, insists upon immortality. 
But the changeless year glides unsympathizing over 
Arabian graves. He is doubly dead, wjtio is buried 
in the desert. 

As we advanced, we saw more plainly the blank 
sand that overspread the earth, from us to the east- 
ern horizon. Out of its illimitable reaches paced 
strings of camels, with swarthy Arabs. Single 
horsemen, and parties upon donkeys, ambled quiet- 
ly by. The huge white plaster palace, which Ab- 
bas Pacha was building upon the edge of the des- 
ert, swarmed with workmen, and his army of boys 
was encamped upon the sands beyond. Our path 
lay northward, along the line where the greenness 
of the Nile-valley blends with the desert. There 
was a little scant shrubbery upon the sides of the 
way — groves of mimosa, through which stretched 



O UTSKIRTS. 



25 



fche light sand, almost like a road ; and towards 
the west lay the gardens of Shoobra, a summer 
palace of Mehemet All, palm-fringed along the 
shore. 

As the sun set, I turned upon my camel, and 
saw Grand Cairo for the last time. 

One summer day, in Switzerland, as I climbed 
the Faulhorn, I saw suddenly in a dark tarn below 
me the unbroken imaaje of the snow-summitted Wet- 
terhorn, which was miles away, beyond the valley 
of G-rindelwald. Every point of each solitary snow- 
spire glittered entire, and the tarn was filled with the 
majestic apparition. So lay the vision of cathedral 
sublimity, pure, perfect, and impossible, in the 
mind of Michael Angelo. 

But here the dream of a different genius was 
made visible. If that was grand and austere, how 
exquisite was this ! The delicate grace of the grove 
of minarets clustering in the glowing sunset, re- 
vealed the image of an eastern poet's mind, and the 
voice of the muezzin that vibrated to our ears and 
died in a tranquil heaven, touched them as tenderly 
as the aerial outline struck the eye. 

Many an evening I had floated upon the lagune 
of Venice, homeward from the Lido. But the 
rocking gondola that bore me to the feet of the 
Queen of the Adriatic is not more passionately 



26 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



remembered than the swaying camel, that at the 
same moment of the day bore me away from ^' the 
mother of the world." 

A lofty obelisk rose between us and the west. 
Our eyes clung to it in passing, for it marked the 
site of Heliopolis the magnificent, the city of the 
sun.' Plato went to school there, and Moses, and 
thither came Joseph bringing the young child and 
his mother. It is a mass of sand mounds now, and 
a few inarticulate stone relics. But in its midst 
lies a pleasant garden, whose flowers wave around 
the base of the great obelisk on which the hierogly- 
phics are covered by the cells of wild bees. 

At Heliopolis, also, the phenix built its funeral 
pyre, and rose from the " Medean alchemy" of its 
own ashes. 

Yet in that moment, plodding along on the top 
of the camel, I turned and gazed at Heliopolis very 
tranquilly. I have looked with as much excitement 
at King Philip's Mount Hope, as I sailed down 
Narragansett Bay. This tranquillity, however, was 
not indifference, or satiety, or ignorance. I was 
conscious that the place and the moment, the me- 
mories and anticipations with which my life was 
overflowing in that sunset had acclimated me to 
this height of interest, so that I breathed its air 
naturally. 



OUTSKIRTS. 



27 



Nothing could have really surprised Ixion after 
the first draught of nectar. That gave him, in a 
goblet, the freedom of Heaven. A man who has 
sailed for two months upon the Nile, encounters the 
desert with an emotion none the less profound be- 
cause it is placid. 

Eastern enthusiasm is undoubtedly suspected. 
The filth, fanaticism, and inconvenience of the East 
are not to be denied, nor the alarming proportion of 
vermin to people in oriental cities. Therefore, who- 
ever sees in a mosque only red and white plaster, 
or in the Parthenon but a mass of broken marble, 
should not expose himself to the trouble of con- 
templating those objects. There are prints of them 
engraved with restored proportions, a travelling and 
thinking made easy, much preferable to the ocular 
experience of those agile travellers who overrun all 
Europe in three months. 

When once you are admitted ad eundem in that 
enthusiasm, however, you will readily forgive the 
suspicion of all under-giaduates. Looking at the 
East through your experience, and confessing that 
" we want from nature but the first, few primitive 
notes, in us lies the true melody, with its endless 
variations" — you will bear with the most judicious 
doubts and the most sensible shrugs, as the astrono- 
mer, stealing through his telescope the secrets of 



28 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



the moon, tolerates the plain common sense which 
asserts thafc it is all green cheese. 

I remember when Tadpole came home from Italy. 
He seemed to me like one who had basked in the 
latest smile of my absent mistress. I greeted him 
as poor Arabs in a desert village greet the Hadji or 
pilgrim who returns from Mecca, and has seen the 
Prophet's tomb and the holy stone. On the most 
Italian of June evenings we strolled together in the 
moonlight, and renewed in our words the romance 
of the South. 

He listened courteously and quietly. I loved his 
silence, in which I perceived the repose of May days 
in Naples. The smoke curled languidly from his 
cigar, and we heard the beat of oars upon the tran- 
quil bay. 

"Yes," he said at last — "I know — it was cer- 
tainly so. But frankly — do you not think the fleas 
balance the fascination ?" 

Tadpole has the reputation and privilege of a 
travelled man. He brought shell necklaces from 
Venice, and corals from Naples, and scarfs from 
Rome — ^but, for all that, he has never been in 
Italy. 



IV. 



ENCAMPING. 

The evening darkened, and we paced along m 
perfect silence. 

The stars shone with the crisp brilliancy of our 
January nights, but the air was balmy, veined 
occasionally with a streak of strange warmth, which 
I knew was the breath of the desert. Under the 
palms, along the edges of cultivated fields we 
passed, a spectral procession, and I caught at times 
the fragment of a song from the shekh who led the 
way. 

The Arabs who had gone forward with the pack 
camels, were to encamp just beyond a little town 
which we entered after dark. It was a collection 
of mud hovels, and we reflected with satisfaction 
upon the accommodation of our new tent, and the 
refreshing repose it promised. 

Lost in pleasing anticipations, we scarcely ob- 
served that our line of march was suddenly altered, 
and I had barely time to save my head from violent 
contact with the stone cross-piece of a huge gate— 



30 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



when we perceived that we were in a caravanseri 
or khan. 

Now a khan in oriental literature, — in parts of 
Persia and in Damascus, as we shall hereafter see, 
is no less beautiful than convenient. But this 
khan in the small mud town was a square court, of 
the character and dignity of a sheep-fold, and by 
no means suited our anticipations of a desert camp. 

It was dark within the enclosure, but the scene 
was picturesque. 

By the light of two or three torches we could see 
our camels and those of other travellers lying upon the 
ground. Groups of Arabs, and Egyptian merchants 
sat around the sides of the yard, with their long 
chibouques, and arranged for the night. In the mid- 
dle of the court was a well, and around it were piled 
our camp equipage and our luggage, which the Arabs 
had cunningly removed from the camels. Upon en- 
tering, my camel snorted and sighed with satisfac- 
tion, and immediately knelt, delighted with the 
prospect and the society. But there was very 
ominous silence on all sides. 

We were sufficiently accustomed to the people to 
understand that this was the trial of mastery between 
us. The arrangement of encamping outside the town 
was perfectly comprehended by the Arabs, but they 
wisely wished to test our metal. 



ENCAMPING. 



31 



The Howadji were not at all sorry, and after a 
preliminary burst of surprise and indignation, they 
ordered the camels to be instantly reloaded, which 
was a work of no little time. 

The Arabs expostulated in the most astonishing 
manner. 

"What! desert this agreeable khan — this sweet 
security from thieves and the nameless danger? 
of the desert ! Load the camels for a journey of a 
few minutes, when all was so comfortably arranged 
for the night ! It was only a pleasantry of the be- 
nign Howadji." 

The groups of turbans and ample drapery emitted 
meditative smoke, and complacently watched and 
listened. Our Arabs scolded and conversed apart 
with Mohammed, and he, the timorous commander, 
made peace with the enemy, and attempted to whee- 
dle his allies. But the command to reload was sternly 
repeated, and in the course of an hour we moved 
triumphantly out of the khan at the head of our 
caravan. A few steps beyond the town brought us 
to the white-domed tomb of a shekh, just on the edge 
of the desert, and there the camping-ground was 
chosen. 

In a few minutes our desert palace was built. It 
was a new white tent, and of circular form, to 
facilitate the pitching. The pole was planted upon 



32 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



a spot indicated by the Pacha, and the canvass was 
rapidly laid over and stretched to the peg^. The 
riding camels were then led up, and made to kneel 
while the carpets, blankets, and matting were remov- 
ed from the saddle. We laid the matting upon the 
sand, spread over it a coarse, thick carpeting, and 
covered the whole with two Persian rugs, one upon 
each side of the pole. The travelling-bags were 
then thrown in, and we commenced Arabian house- 
keeping. 

The commander's tent was pitched at a little 
distance, and into that were conveyed the chests of 
cooking-utensils, and the household-furniture. He 
built a fire near by, and put on some leathery water 
to boil. 

The camels, growling and grumbling, lay outside 
the camp. The fire flashed over the motley figures 
of the Arabs crouching over it, and looking into it 
with melancholy eyes. The commander, chagrined 
that his active duties must commence that evening, 
and vexed at the result of his diplomacy in the khan, 
moved sulkily and silently among the pots and pans, 
while the Howadji sat smoking in the tent, whose 
yellow-lined sides drawn back at the door, framed 
the picture. All around, the black night closed us in, 
blacker and more mysterious for the sense of the 
dumb desert that lay in it. Out of that desert, low, 



jSNC AMPING. 



33 



fitful gusts stole through the darkness, and puffed 
and played with the fire as with a glittering toy. 
And as the flame mounted and strained in the wind's 
embrace, it flashed upon the white blank of the 
tomb, and shrank again among the Arabs, affrighted. 

The commander donned the golden-sleeve and 
brought us tea. It was placed on an irregular cir- 
cular stool, five or six inches high, which served as 
our desert-table. There was more than the original 
flavor of China and the derived flavor of leather-bot- 
tles in that tea ; for it tasted of pleasant firesides and 
remembered tables, and, by the vivid contrast, as by 
a song of home, plunged us more remotely into the 
wilderness. 

That ceremony over and another chibouque smok- 
ed, we lay down to sleep. We had brought no iron 
bedsteads as many wisely do ; but I was not sorry to 
feel that I was lying on the desert. 

Once, at midnight, in a ship at sea, I awoke and 
was conscious of the gentle rocking of the ocean. I 
knew that the moon was bright upon the canvass 
above, that even the studding-sails were set, and that 
the odors of Portugal were in the air. I knew that 
a strong hand was at the wheel, and a faithful eye 
at the bow, and that the fleet Nebraska was staunch 
and sure. 

But in that moment, a speck upon a chip in the 

2* 



34 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



wilderness of waters, my sense of confidence was in 
the slow sway of the ocean. For the motion was 
gentle as that of a mother with a sleeping child, and 
the languid creak of the rigging, like a nurse's 
drowsy croning. It was a feeling of life, and the 
faith that life always inspires. 

But when I stretched myself upon the desert, and 
perceived its slight nnevenness, like the undulation 
of the sea, stiffened forever, and heard only the 
breathing of camels — strange, demoniac animals— 
and the rustle of ghostly winds from the desert and 
the darkness, I was penetrated with a sense of death, 
and felt how much more awful is the desert than the 
sea. 

I lay long awake, in reveries, stranger than 
dreams, then fell into a doze — a limbo of fantastic 
fancies — then was aware of a strange sound in the 
night. In that environment of death, it was like 
the wail of the banshee. It was near and far, and 
filled all the air — a melancholy cry, that died through 
lich' lingering cadences into the extremest distance, 
then poured its plaintive sweetness into the silence 
that clung, saddened, more closely to my heart. 

I did not know that it was the muezzin's cry. In 
that pathetic wail I did not hear, as the faithful heard, 
Al-ld-hu-AJc-har. There is no god but God. 



THE CAMEL. 



The sun was a sluggard next morning. We were 
up with the last stars, and as I pushed aside the tent 
curtains before dawn, I saw the constellations that 
are the glory of our western evenings. Orion and 
the Pleiades were sinking in the west. The stars de- 
scended so near to the horizon that we seemed to be 
embowered in them. They are naturally worshipped 
in the desert, those friendly, solitary wanderers 
through space, not unlike the lonely voyagers of 
the wilderness. ^ 

Hot water, tea, toast, and a chibouque, were 
things of a moment. Th^re was no luxurious smok- 
ing, however, in those early hours. Tents were 
falling, camels loading and growling, Arabs scolding 
and swearing ; there was the hurry of awaking, the 
dispatch of day, and the commander putting on his 
arsenal. I say "dispatch," and a chorus of camels 
from the desert snorts me to scorn. But an hour 
and a half usually sufficed for the matutinal cere- 
monies. Then a few cinders and scattered straws 



06 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



upon the sand, were the remains of our pleasant 
desert pavilion, and falling into line, tied by the 
halter to the preceding tail, the camels move on, and 
the caravan proceeded. 

A camel excites no sentiment or affection in the 
Western, nor did I observe any indication of the 
Arab's love for the animal. He is singularly adapt- 
ed to his business of walking over the desert ; but is 
awkward and cross, and destitute of any agreeable 
trait. His motion is ludicrously stiff and slow. He 
advances as if his advent were the coming of grace 
and beauty, and the carriage of his neck and head 
is comically conceited, beyond w^ords. My camel 
never suggested a pleasurable emotion to me but 
once, and that was on this first morning, when, as 
we moved from the camp, he lifted his head toward 
the desert and sniffed, as if he ta^ed home and his 
natural freedom in the unpolluted air. 

The camels seem to be only half tamed ; and some- 
times, seduced by the fascination of the desert's 
breath, they break from the caravan, and dash away 
in a wild grotesque trot, straight into the grim silence 
of the wilderness, bearing the luckless Howadji upon 
a voyage too vague, and pursued by the yells and 
moans of the Bedoueen. They are guided by a 
halter, slipped behind their ears and over the nose, 
and they swing their flexile necks like ostriches. In 



THE CAMEL. 



37 



the first desert days, I sometimes thought to alter the 
direction of ray beast by pulling the halter. But I 
gathered in its whole length, hand over hand, and 
only drew the long neck quite round, so that the 
great stupid head was almost between my knees, and 
the hateful eyes stared mockingly at my own. I 
learned afterward to guide the animal by touching 
the side of the neck with a stick. 

The Pacha's was a smaller beast than mine, and 
looked and acted like a cassowary. The Arabs called 
him El Shiraz, and the commander's was dubbed 
Pomegranate by the same relentless poets. Mine 
was an immense and formidable brute. He was 
called by a name which seemed to me, naturally 
enough, to sound like Boobie, a name which the 
commander interpreted to be one of the titles of a 
beautiful woman. But the great, scrawny, sandy, 
bald back of his head, and his general rusty tough- 
ness and clumsiness, insensibly begot for him in my 
mind the name of MacWhirter, and by that name he 
was known so long as I knew him. 

The motion of the camel, which is represented as 
veiy wearisome, we found to be soothing. The 
monotonous swing made me intolerably drowsy in 
the still, warm mornings, and the dragomen tell 
tales of Howadji who drop asleep as they ride, and 
who, losing their balance, break arms, legs, and 



38 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



necks, in their fall to the ground. The tedium of 
camel-riding is its sluggishness ; for although the 
beasts can trot so that sultans and caliphs have dis- 
patched expresses in eight days from Cairo to Da- 
mascus, yet the trot of the usual travelling camel is 
very hard. The Pacha's El Shiraz had a sufficiently 
pleasant trotting gait ; but MacWhirter's exertions 
in that kind shook my soul within me. 

Yet with all this, the effect of the motion of the 
camel, separated from his awkward and ridiculous 
form and its details, is stately and dignified. So 
much so, indeed, that tJie imagination would select 
him, first, as the bearer of a dignitary in a pageant, 
covered with long sweeping draperies, which should 
Conceal him entirely, and his rounded hump spread 
with heavy carpets, he presents a moving throne for 
a caliph or a sultan, in his desert progress, of dig- 
nity unsurpassed. The rider sits supreme above the 
animal, and over the earth, and the long languid 
movement harmonizes with the magnificent mono- 
tony of the scene. 

When the sun rose, our caravan was quietly mak- 
ing its two-and-a-half miles an hour. It advanced 
not more rapidly than a small boy's walking, for at 
the head of the train, with the baiter of the forward 
camel drawn over his shoulder, marched the young 
Hamedj an Arab boy of ten years, whose father was 



THE CAMEL. 



39 



the shekh and presiding genius of the caravan, and 
whose white-headed grandfather, ambling by our 
sides upon a little donkey which he quite enveloped 
and concealed in his flowing garments, was our un- 
invited guest. There were two or three other men 
as assistants, all friends or relatives of the shekh, and 
we went forward, a quiet family-party, in the fresh 
March morning. 

We had encamped upon the verge of the desert, 
and leaving the green land as we started, our route 
now lay parallel with the line of green, and not 
more than a quarter of a mile away from it. Yet 
that line was as distinct as the shore from the sea, 
and we renewed upon the desert the vision of the 
Nile-landscape. 

Our western horizon was an endless forest of 
palms, with which mingled occasional minarets. 
The east was a hard level line of monotonous gray. 
My eyes clung to the greenness and beauty of the 
river, although in the clear daylight the awfulness 
of the desert was gracious and beautiful also. Un- 
der our feet, and as far eastward as we could see, the 
ground was like a beach of firm gravel. Never was 
the desert, even when we were in it fairly and far, so 
much desert to the imagination as near Cairo, never 
so glaringly appalling as the yellow Libyan and Ara- 
bian wastes that girdled the greenness of the Nile. 



40 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



When we went, during the Cairo days, to the 
petrified forest, a few miles from the city in the 
wilderness, I dreaded the desert, as in the languid 
and voluptuous embrace of Como, I dreaded the 
snowy Switzerland that rose severe from its north- 
ern extremity. Standing among the i^etrifactions, 
they were puerile and tame. I only saw and felt 
the desert, and no more heeded the sight we came 
to see than a general, meditating the various chances 
of the impending battle, heeds the banquet at which 
he sits. 

You have stood upon the sea-shore before you 
sailed, and imagination, with an eye more glittering 
than the Ancient Mariner's, fascinated hope and fear 
with tales more wonderful than his. Friends and 
foes were daily going to sea, and the ocean was but 
a thoroughfare between the continents. The ho 
rizon was white with sails that canopied men, 
smoking, and sea-sick, and gaming, and tortured 
with ennui, and longing for land. The sea was 
trite. Some mercantile friends even went up the 
side of the ship, with a hand-bag and an umbrella, 
to go to England or France, as you had stepped 
upon a Hudson steamer for an evening at West 
Point. But for all that, before you sailed, the sea 
was awful, mysterious and strange as death, although 
friends die daily, and Sinbad saw nothing which you 



THE CAMEL. 



41 



might not see, Columbus sought no Cathay that you 
might not reach. 

More mysterious, if possible, than the ocean to 
the untravelled, is the desert before you mount El 
Shiraz and MacWhirter. It is a sea of sand to the 
fancy, a waste of blowing, soft, yellow, glaring 
sand, utterly soul-consuming, without trees, with- 
out water, whereon the bones of men and camels 
bleach together, and the whirring sand, inexorable 
as the sea, hides as surely its own devastations. 
Such in fierce midsummer is the arid heart of 
Sahara. 

But the Arabian desert is a more comely monster, 
though a monster still. For the death of the de- 
sert is more awful than the life of the sea, as silence 
is more terrible than sound. And, when experience 
takes the tale from imagination, not less glittering, 
although different, is its eye, not less fascinating the 
closes of its strain, and experience, like the mariner, 
leaves you a sadder and a wiser man. 



VL 



THE DESERT BLOSSOMS. 

The caravan plodded on. The morning and the 
silence deepened. The stillness was not tranquil- 
lizing, but exciting. My restless eyes roved around 
the horizon, and presently discovered another train 
behind us. It advanced more rapidly than our own, 
and, at length, a grave old man was visible, with a 
venerable beard and a cheerful countenance, riding 
upon a white mare. Immediately behind him, two 
huge palanquins rolled from side to side on the 
backs of camels. 

Was it not plain to see that the lithe figure lean- 
ing from the first palanquin to survey the strangers 
was the beautiful daughter of the grave old man, 
and that her unveiled face confirmed the suspicion 
of his dark turban (for Christians may wear no 
other), that this was no Muslim, but an Armenian 
caravan ? 

Did not the Howadji's eyes with warm Christian 
sympathy contemplate this sister in the faith, mark- 



THE DESERT BLOSSOMS. 



43 



ing the large, luminous eyes, the lastrous fullness of 
dark hair, and the fair oriental complexion of the 
Armenian ? 

Could they fail to note the maidenly condescen- 
sion to the mysteries of the Muslim toilette in the 
finger-nails delicately tipped with henna, or could 
they cynically accuse the treachery of silken sleeves 
that lightly falling away revealed gorgeous bracelets 
embracing rosy arms ? 

The desert suddenly blossomed like the rose. It 
was an Armenian merchant of Cairo, making the 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the holy week. He 
ambled toward the commander, who, smoking his 
chibouque, looked graciously down upon him from 
the heights of Pomegranate, and, after a prolonged 
salaam, inquired into our history. 

"Two opulent strangers," retorted the com- 
mander in the full glory of the golden sleeve ; 
" two great American Moguls going to gladden 
Jerusalem with their presence." 

" Tdih, tdib Tcateir (good, very good)," gravely 
replied the Armenian, inclining toward El Shiraz 
and MacWhirter. Would it be pleasant to journey 
together?" 

"I will consult the Moguls," said the lofty com- 
mander, and he turned to converse with us. 

" Do any of them speak English ?" anxiously 



44 



THE HuWADJl IN SYRIA. 



inquired the Pacha, and the commander repeated 
the inquiry to the old man. 

Ah! hooltooluh (Oh heavens), no," replied the 
venerable beard ; " but Arabic, Coptic, Syriac, a 
little Persian and Turkish, and madame, the mother 
of the beautiful daughter, imperfect Italian." 

Well, I don't speak Italian," said the Pacha, 
" so they may come along." 

We moved on. Presently seeing madame, the 
mother of the beautiful daughter, looking out of the 
palanquin, and remembering her accomplishments, 
I ventured an overture, and, looking straight in the 
daughter's eyes, remarked to the mother — 

" Fa hello oggi, Signora (It is a pleasant day, 
Madame)." 

" Si, no?i ca/pisco, Signore (Yes, I don't under- 
stand, sir)," returned the mother very graciously. 

I was rather ashamed of such a morning-call re- 
mark to an Armenian lady upon the desert, and felt 
rebuked by her ignorance of conventional conversa- 
tion. I tried again. 

^^Aiidate a Gerusalemme anche lei ? (You are also 
going to Jerusalem ?)" 

" Si, non capisco, Signore.'''' 

And I suspected the Italian was more imperfect 
than the old man knew. 

But the beautiful daughter manifested an extreme 



THE DESERT BLOSSOMS. 



45 



interest in the conversation, and I fear was some- 
what amused at the discrepancy between the splen- 
dor of the strangers' titles and that of their robes, 
which were far from royal. 

So, in view of the eyes I began again: "ia 
figlia non parla Italiano ? (The daughter does not 
speak Italian?)" 

"/Si non capisco, Signore^i'^ came graciously as ever 
from the maternal lips, and the caravans relapsed 
into silence. 

By three o'clock we began to think of encamping. 
Travellers complain o*f the short day's work upon 
the desert ; but surely if you mount MacWhirter at 
five o'clock in the morning, you will be ready by 
two or three o'clock to intermit the monotonous 
jerk of his gait, and stretch yourself upon the car- 
pet over the soft sand. The camp was pitched not 
far from shore ; for so seemed the green land to the 
west, and the door of our pavilion was arranged to 
command that of the grave Armenian. 

Before sunset two great German Moguls came tip, 
convoyed by a wretched party of Arabs, and a one- 
eyed dragoman. They had an unhappy air, and 
stood in the way of the men who were pitching 
their tents, looking longingly at the palm-trees, and 
dismally toward the desert, as if the East were an 
" experience " which they must undergo. And while 



46 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



they stood there in the sunset, mentally moaning 
that they must sup without sauer-kraut, and wish- 
ing that Groethe had never written the West- 
Oestlicher-Divan, nor Riickert his Ghazelles, a gay 
wind blew out of the desert, tossing sand in their 
faces, and running with low gusty laughter to play 
with the palms, and to carry back into the wilder- 
ness the muezzin's cry. 

It fled, and we watched the day gloriously dying. 
Then suddenly fell over the world the sable folds 
of the great tent of night : the darkness was cool 
and sweet, and through myriads of points above, the 
gone glory of the day looked in and made the dark- 
ness gorgeous. 



VII. 



ROMANCE. 

" O GREAT American Mogul, are you awak-e ?" 
asked I of the Pacha, in the early starlight of the 
second day. 

" I am," he said. 

" This is the great Syrian desert — six hundred 
leagues in length, three hundred in breadth, ex- 
tending from Aleppo to the Arabian Sea, from 
Egypt to the Persian Gulf "— 

*' O great American Mogul," interrupted the 
Pacha, " are you awake V 

" Most certainly I am, and that strip of palm- 
land which begins to glimmer through the dying 
night is Egypt, of which a Turkish Pacha said, 
Egypt is the most beautiful farm, but Syria is a 
charming country-house." 

" Moreover," I continued, " Arab signifies in the 
original, solitude or desert. And this is the oldest 
and most estimable of lands" — 

"This sand?" inquired the Pacha. 

"No; but this East which has mothered us all, 



48 



THE HOWADJI IN SYIilA, 



sending out of its apparently sterile womb race 
after race whose Vv^ildness has been tamed into wis- 
dom, and whose genius, early fed with grandeur 
and simplicity on the luxuriant shores of this river, 
and in the solitude of the wilderness, has ripened 
into the art and literature and religion which have 
made ns, and which we cherish." 
"Well!" 

" Well, Pacha, eschewing the leathery tea which 
the commander is getting ready, you shall break- 
fast upon the styles and titles of the prince of this 
renowned land. You will agree that they become 
the dignity and character of the realm. They will 
not seem absurd to you in this tent, although they 
would seem so in the club and counting-house ; and 
they will impart a fine flavor to your desert reveries. 
Pacha, perpend ; ' I, by the infinite grace of the 
great, just, and omnipotent Creator, and by the in- 
numerable miracles of the chief of Prophets, Em- 
peror of powerful Emperors, the Kefuge of Sover- 
eigns, Distributor of Crowns to the Kings of the 
Earth, Servant of the thrice sacred cities, (Mecca 
and Medina,) Governor of the Holy City of Jerusa- 
lem, Master of Europe, Asia, and Africa, conquered 
by our victorious sword and by our terrific lance. 
Lord of three seas, (White, Black, and Red,) of 
Damascus the odor of Paradise, of Bagdad, the seat 



ROMANCE. 



of the Caliphs, of the fortresses of Belgrade, Agria, 
and a multitude of countries, islands, straits, nations, 
generations, and of so many victorious armies which 
repose beneath the shadow of our Sublime Porte, 
I — the shadow of God on earth !"' 

That is the name of the king of this country, 
the style of the sultan ; and it is as sensible and 
sonorous as the " Defender of the Faith," applied 
to the English king, George the Fourth, or 
"Most Christian King" to the last sovereigns of 
France. 

I like these glittering shreds, and patches, and 
remnants of magnificence. Despite the gentle 
Juliet, the melody of the name should accord with 
the sweetness of the odor, and the name of the sul- 
tan ungarnished with these thundering tail-pieces 
would be as little agreeable as the prefix of " puis- 
sant" to our own President. The sultan is the 
Lord of three seas, and of the odor of Paradise, and 
of the seat of the Caliphs ; but what faith did 
George the Fourth ever defend, except that extra- 
ordinary creed of his being the first gentleman in 
Europe ? And what were the shining " Christian" 
virtues of the Bourbon kings of France ? 

— While we sat, pleasing fancy with this pompous 

prelude of the sultan's laws, the sun rose through 

the morning vapors, like the full red moon. Khadra, 
3 



50 



THE HO WAD J I IN SYRIA. 



the Armenian's beautiful daughter, stepped into her 
palanquin. The Germans v^^ho had paid specified 
piastres for the vision of the East, were already sea- 
sick upon their camels, and were disappearing 
toward the horizon with their one-eyed keeper ; and 
the venerable-bearded Armenian paced up on his 
white mare to offer the morning salute to El Shiraz 
and MacWhirter. 

The commander had retired to a little distance", 
and was purposing to perform the wudoo, or ablu- 
tion for prayer, sprinkling sand upon his hands, for 
the Prophet permits sand to be used in a scarcity of 
water. The father of our Shekh ambled off upon 
bis little donkey alone, over the hard, level desert, 
as naturally and unconcernedly as a gray-haired 
mariner in a cock-boat in the midst of the ocean. 
Hamed drew the halter over his shoulder, and with 
short quick steps led our caravan once more upon 
its way. 

The sense of freedom and satisfaction in the desert- 
life, to those who are bred in the harassing details 
of civilization, has been well sung. Yet in reading 
books of travel, we take words for things, and for- 
get in the theoretical familiarity with strange expe- 
riences, how exciting the experience will be. In 
my own wanderings, I have observed that the real- 
ity always blotted from memory the many pictures 



E 0 M A N C E . 



51 



which books had painted there ; and the endless 
volumes of travel which are published, spring, I am 
sure, not only from the selfish wish to make a book, 
but from the unselfish desire to communicate im- 
pressions which are so vivid in actual experience, 
that they seem to be entirely new. 

Thus I entered Rome in the dusk of an autumn 
day, and, without having seen any ruin or point of 
fame, I was awakened by a heavy zhunder-shower in 
the night. As I lay listening to the crashing peals, I 
could only say, " Rome, Rome," and wondered, in 
the fury of a fearful burst of the storm, if it had not 
struck St. Peter's. Then I besought memory to 
tell me what it knew of St. Peter's, but it only 
smiled inarticulately, and indicated a sublime archi- 
tectural vastness. What the details were, what 
pictures were there, what statues, what statistics of 
measurement, it did not tell, although it had enjoyed 
such ample opportunities to know, and mj only 
other consolation of knowledge in that moment, 
was the conviction that, somewhere in the shadow 
of St. Peter's, the Miserere was sung during the 
holy week. 

So when I passed down the long gallery of the 
Vatican, hastening to tire Apollo and the Transfigu- 
ration, casts and engravings vanished from remem- 
brance, and the charm of the statue and of the pic- 



62 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



ture was as original as if I had been the first specta- 
tor of their beauty. 

So, as you mount MacWhirter and follow the 
boy Hamed into the desert, its breath blows you a 
welcome, and the same breath disperses the fancies 
you bring with you. You breathe inspiration and 
exhilaration. That latent germ of the Asian and 
Bedoueen which inheres in you, responds to the cool, 
vast silence, to the Arabian horizon. You are no- 
madic, you a wanderer, and you must needs dream 
of a life under the coarse, shapeless, black tents of 
the Arabs which we are passing, and wonder if 
Khadra yonder, the large-eyed, olive-skinned Arme- 
nian girl, would follow you forever, and willingly 
share with you in those sandy solitudes, the rice, 
lentils, butter, and dates, which are the staple food 
of the Bedoueen. 

But as we coast along the green sand, while the 
warm southerly gale freshens, and enter upon a 
tract of pure Sahara, over which the dead white 
light glares and burns, the imagination grows more 
voluptuous, and you remember that the desert is 
not all ascetic, but has a strain of splendor in its 
history, and has seen other sights than solitary 
trains of camels and a white-bearded old shekh can- 
tering upon a donkey. 

Turning your back upon the west and the palms, 



ROMANCE. 



53 



and looking eastward, you recall that Arabian his- 
torians relate the pious pilgrimage of Haroun El 
Bashid and Zobeide over the eastern region of this 
same desert, from Bagdad to Mecca. They per- 
formed the journey upon foot, those pious pilgrims, 
but they were royally attended, and a carpet was 
unrolled before them as they went, so that the 
way was but one long pavilion, a gorgeous gallery, 
cloud-frescoed, sun-goldened, moon-mellowed, and 
for wall the shining infinitude of the horizon, paint- 
ed by imagination and peopled by religious faith, at 
will. At every stage of the progress, a castle was 
erected, magnificently furnished, and a million and 
fifty thousand dynars were disbursed in gifts. 

This story has the true flavor of the Arabian 
Nights. But El Easy, most romantic of historians, 
strings a rosary of such pearls. 

He relates that when the mother of the last of the 
Abassides made the Mecca pilgrimage, in the year 
631 of the Hegira, about 1243 of our era, her cara- 
van numbered not less than one hundred and twenty 
thousand camels. In the year 97 of the same epoch, 
a sultan took with him nine hundred camels for 
his wardrobe alone. Another, long before Haroun 
ElRashid, spent thirty million dirhems upon the 
journey, building fine houses at every station, and 
furnishing them splendidly, erecting mile-stones the 



54 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



whole way ; and, exquisite epicurean, freighted 
hundreds of camels with snow to cool his sherbet. 
Haroun El Rashid might no longer reign in imagina- 
tion as the oriental Epicurus, although he did per- 
form the pilgrimage nine times, should the name of 
this Sybarite transpire. And his chance is farther 
threatened by the sultan, who, in 719, carried with 
him five hundred camels for sweetmeats and con- 
fectionary, and two hundred and eighty for pome- 
granates, almonds, and other fruits. In his travel- 
ling larder, also, there were a thousand geese and 
three thousand fowls. 

Indeed, as we stop to lunch, and the commander 
hands us the bread, cheese, and dates, which are our 
morning refreshment, we seriously consider whether 
the romances of the Arabian Nights are not veritable 
history. 

" Or the veritable history a romance of the Ai'a- 
bian Nights," says the cold-blooded Pacha. 

As we lunched, we noted the little blue blossoms 
that grew among the flinty stones, cheering as the 
odors of land that breathe around the seaman. For 
we constantly spoke of coasting along the green, 
and putting out to the desert as voyagers speak of 
the ocean. 

And here, for the first time, you feel the fall force 
of the name, ship of the desert," applied to the 



ROMANCE. 



55 



camel. For not only is he the means of navigation, 
but his roll is like that of a vessel, and his long, 
flexible neck like a pliant bov^sprit. The resem- 
blance was strengthened and fixed forever by the 
younger of the unhappy German Moguls, who, with 
the air of a man who had not slept, and to whom 
the West-Oestlicher Divan was of small account, 
went off in the gray dawn, sea-sick upon his camel. 

I fear, that to the lambent eyes of Khadra, when 
lunch was over and we brought our sulky brutes to 
the ground again, and resumed our way, I, contem- 
plating the scene through blue wire-gauze goggles, 
was not a purely oriental object. I had no suspicion 
of it, I confess, until I saw the Pacha bind his around 
his eyes. But after a single glance at him, I re- 
moved my own, and braved the burning sun. 

And away we went again, the little Hamed with 
his quick, short steps, pulling us over the desert. 

Away we went again, lost in silence and in 
dreams. 

You are there in Arabia, though they call it the 
Syrian desert. You shall see Jerusalem, and dimly 
along the horizon, the crescented minarets of Da- 
mascus quiver in the tremulous air of hope. Your 
dreams of boyhood, your elder hopes were worth the 
trusting ; for this eastern sun daily proves their 
truth. 



56 



THE HOWADJI IN STKIA. 



And you, friend of mine, while you turn my 
pages — even now dreaming and hoping as I dreamed 
and hoped, turning with feverish fingers the pages 
of others — scorn the scoffer, and believe in the 
beauty and mystery of the East. The picturesque 
and nameless charms that haunt your fancy of the 
Orient, shall be experienced. Here you shall be 
thrilled with that sense of lofty and primeval free- 
dom which shall throb ever after through the limited 
Jife that we must lead. 

For the Orson in you, the savage man, the spirit 
that loves the rock, and the waste, and the bound- 
less horizon, with what we call mere human, sen- 
suous love; the spirit that dwindles cities and their 
extremest possibility before the grandeur and repose 
of a wilderness lying in the twilight of tradition — 
which seizes the manly and noble among young men, 
and drags them to the mountains and the prairies 
— that is the spirit, which, like the camel, on the 
first morning, will raise its head and scent the wild 
fascination of the desert : which will shout aloud 
and rejoice in the morning and in the stars — crying 
ha-ha to the desert, as the horse cries to the 
trumpets. 



VIII. 



AMONG THE BEDOUEEN. 

The pleasant tales of sultans' pilgrimages are 
only the mirage of memory. 

The poor and pious Muslim, which is not the title 
of caliphs, when he undertakes a long desert journey, 
does not carry nine hundred camels for his wardrobe, 
but he carries his grave-linen with him. 

Stricken by fatigue, or privation, or disease, 
when his companions cannot tarry for his recovery 
or death, he performs the ablution with sand, and 
digging a trench in the ground, wraps himself in his 
grave-clothes, and, covering his body with sand, lies 
alone in the desert to die, trusting that the wind 
will complete his burial. 

In the Arabs around you, you will mark a kindred 
sobriety. Their eyes are luminous and lambent, but 
it is a melancholy light. They do not laugh. They 
move with easy dignity, and their habitual expres- 
sion is musing and introverted, as thatof men whose 
minds are stored with the solemn imagery of the 

desert. 
3* 



58 THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 

You will understand that your own party of Arabs 
is not of the genuine desert breed. They are 
dwellers in cities, not dwellers in tents. They are 
mongrel, like the population of a sea-port. They 
pass from Palestine to Egypt with caravans of pro- 
duce, like coast-traders, and are not pure Bedoueen. 

But they do not dishonor their ancestry. When 
a true Bedoueen passes upon his solitary camel, and 
with a low-spoken salaam looks abstractedly and 
incuriously upon the procession of great American 
Moguls, it is easy to see that his expression is the 
same as that of the men around you, but intensified 
by the desert. 

Burckhardt says that all orientals, and especially 
the Arabs, are little sensible of the beauty of nature. 
But the Bedoueen is mild and peaceable. He seems 
to you a dreamy savage. There is a softness and 
languor, almost an efteminacy of impression, the 
seal of the sun's child. He does not eat flesh — or 
rarely. He loves the white camel with a passion. 
He fights for defence, or for necessity ; and the 
children of the Shereefs, or descendants of the Pro- 
])het, are sent into the desert to be made heroes. 
They remain there eight or ten years, rarely visiting 
their families. 

The simple landscape of the desert is the symbol 
of the Bedoueen's character ; and he has little know- 



AMONG THE BEDOUEEN. 59 

ledge of more than his eye beholds. In some of the 
interior provinces of China, there is no name for the 
ocean, and when, in the time of shekh Daheir, a 
party of Bedoueen came to Acre upon the sea, they 
asked what was that desert of water. 

A Bedoueen, after a foray upon a caravan, dis- 
covered among his booty several bags of fine pearls. 
He thought them dourra, a kind of grain. But as 
they did not soften in boiling, he was about throw- 
ing them disdainfully away, when a G-aza trader 
offered him a red Tarboosh in exchange, which he 
delightedly accepted. 

Without love of natural scenery, he listens for- 
ever to the fascinating romances of the poets ; for 
beautiful expressions naturally clothe the simple 
and beautiful images he everywhere beholds. The 
palms, the fountains, the gazelles, the stars, and sun, 
and moon, the horse, and camel, these are the large 
illustration and suggestion of his poetry. 

Sitting around the evening fire, and watching its 
flickering with moveless melancholy, his heart thrills 
at the prowess of El-Grundubah, although he shall 
never be a hero, and he rejoices when Kattalet-esh- 
Shugan says to Gundubah, " Come let us marry 
forthwith," although he shall never behold her 
beauty, nor tread the stately palaces. 

He loves the moon which shows him the way over 



60 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

the desert that the sun would not let him take by 
day, and the moon looking into his eyes, sees her 
own melancholy there. In the pauses of the story 
by the fire, while the sympathetic spirits of the de- 
sert sigh in the rustling wind, he says to his fellow, 
' Also in all true poems there should be palm-trees 
and running water." 

For him, in the lonely desert, the best genius of 
Arabia has carefully recorded upon parchment its 
romantic visions ; for him Haroun El Rashid lived 
his romantic life ; for him the angel spoke to Mo- 
hammed in the cave, and God received the Prophet 
into the seventh heaven. 

Some early morning, a cry rings through the 
group of black square tents. He springs from his 
dreams of green gardens and flowing waters, and 
stands sternly against the hostile tribe which has 
surprised his own. The remorseless morning se- 
cretes in desert silence the clash of swords, the ring 
of musketry, the battle-cry. At sunset the black 
square tents are gone, the desolation of silence fills 
the air that was musical with the recited loves of 
Zul-Himmeh, and the light sand drifts in the even- 
ing wind over the corpse of a Bedoueen. 

— So the grim genius of the desert touches every 
stop of romance and of life in you, as you traverse his 
realm and meditate his children. Yet warm ana fas- 



AMONG 



THE 



BEDOUEEN. 



61 



cinating as is his breath, it does not warp your loyalty 
to your native West, and to the time in which you 
were born. Springing from your hard bed upon the 
desert, and with wild morning enthusiasm, pushing 
aside the door of your tent, and stepping out to 
stand among the stars, you hail the desert and hate 
the city, and, glancing toward the tent of the Ar- 
menian Khadra, you shout aloud to astonish Mac- 
Whirter, 

" I will take some savage womaa, she shall rear my dusky race." 

But as the day draws forward, and you see the 
same forms and the same life that Abraham saw, 
and know that Joseph leading Mary into Egypt 
might pass you to-day, nor be aware of more than 
a single sunset since he passed before, then you feel 
that this germ, changeless at home, is only developed 
elsewhere, that the boundless desert freedom is only 
a resultless romance. 

The sun sets and the camp is pitched. The 
shadows are grateful to your eye, as the dry air to 
your lungs. 

But as you sit quietly in the tent-door, watching 
the Armenian camp and the camels, your cheek 
pales suddenly as you remember Abraham, and that 
"he sat in the tent-door in the heat of the day." 
Saving yourself, what of the scene is changed since 



62 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



then ? The desert, the camels, the tents, the tur- 
banned Arabs, they were what Abraham saw when 
*' he lifted up his eyes, and looked, and lo ! three 
men stood by him." 

You are contemporary with the eldest history. 
Your companions are the dusky figures of vaguest 
tradition. The "long result of time" is not for 
you. .^^ ^:;:;;:>... 

In that moment you have lost your birthright. 
You are Ishmael's brother. You have your morn- 
ing's wish. A child of the desert, not for you are 
art, and poetry, and science, and the glowing roll 
of history shrivels away. 

The dream passes as the day dies, and to the 
same stars which heard your morning shout of de- 
sert praise, you whisper as you close the tent-door 
at evening, 

" Better fifty years of Europe, than a cycle of Cathay." 



» 



IX. 



INTO THE DESERT. 

It was not until the fourth day from Cairo that 
we stretched fairly away from the green land into 
the open desert. 

At one point which, like a cape, extended into 
the sand, we had crossed the cultivation of the Nile- 
valley, and had rested under the palms — and, 0 woe ! 
in a treacherous spot of that green way, whether it 
was angry that we should again return after so 
fair a start, or whether it was too enamored of 
Khadra to suffer her to depart, yet, at high noon, 
in crossing a little stream over which the other 
camels gallantly passed, the beasts that bore her 
palanquin tottered and stumbled, then fell mired 
upon the marge of the stream, and the bulky pa- 
lanquin, rolling like a foundering ship, gradually 
subsided into the mud and water, and the fair Arme- 
nian was rescued and drawn ashore by her camel- 
driver. 

The Howadji, who were sauntering leisurely 
behind, perceiving the catastrophe, crossed the 
stream rapidly, and gaining the spot, poured out 



64 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



profuse offers of aid and expressions of sympathy, 
while Khadra looked curiously at them with her 
large, dreamy eyes, and smiled at the strange sound 
of their voices. 

We halted for a few moments in the wretched 
little village, and stood ont into the desert again in 
the early afternoon. Pausing at a little canal of 
Nile water to refill barrels and bottles, the camels 
were allowed to drink their last draught, until we 
should reach El Harish. 

The desert was a limitless level of smooth, grav- 
elled sand, stretching on all sides among the tufted 
shrubs, like spacious well-rolled garden-walks. It 
had the air of a boundless garden carefully kept. 
" And now," said the Pacha, " begins the true 
desert. 

Farther and farther fell the palms behind us, and 
at length the green earth was but a vague western 
belt — a darkish hedge of our garden. Upon the 
hard sand the camel-paths were faintly indicated, 
like cattle-paths upon a sandy field. They went 
straight away to the horizon, and vanished like a 
railway track. 

The sun lay warm upon my back, and with sud- 
den suspicion I turned to look at him, as a child 
upon an ogre who is gently urging him on. For- 
ward and forward upon those faint, narrow desert 



INTO THE DESERT. 



65 



tracks should we pass into tlie very region of his 
wrath ! Here would he smite us terribly with the 
splendor of his scorn, and wither and consume these 
audacious citizens who had come out against him 
with blue cotton umbrellas ! 

In that moment, excited as I was by the con- 
sciousness of being out of sight of land upon the 
desert, I laughed a feeble laugh at my own feeble- 
ness, and all the tales of exposure and peril in the 
wilderness that I had ever read returned with direful 
distinctness, flooding my mind with awe. 

As we advanced, the surface of the desert was 
somewhat broken, and the ridges of sand were en- 
chanted by the sun and shadow into the semblance 
of rose-hued cliffs, based with cool, green slopes. It 
was a simple effect but of the extremest beauty ; and 
my heart, moved by the sun's pleasant pictures, 
deemed him no more an ogre. 

— " Do you see the mirage ?" asked the Pacha, 
turning upon El Shiraz, and pointing to a seeming 
reach of water. 

" Yes ; but I admit no mirage which is not per- 
fect deception. That's clearly sand." 

"True," returned the Pacha; "but yet it is a 
very good mirage." 

We jogged on until we reached it, and found a fair 
little lake. 



66 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



" Yes," said the Pacha without turning, " that's 
clearly sand." 

At every tuft of shrub the camels tried to browse, 
and, sometimes permitting MacWhirter to tarry 
and dally with the dry green, I fell far behind the 
caravan, that held its steady way toward the hori- 
zon. 

Then returned the sense of solitude, and all the 
more deeply because the sky was of that dark, dense 
blue — from the contrast with the shining sand — 
which I had only seen amongst the highest peaks of 
Switzerland, contrasted with the snow, as on the 
glacier of the Aar beneath the Finster Aarhorn. In 
that Arabian day, remembering Switzerland, I lifted 
my eyes, and seconded by the sun, I saw the drifts 
of pure sand, like drifts of Alpine snow. The lines 
and sweeps were as sharp and delicate, and the dark 
shadows whose play is glorious upon this wide race- 
course of the winds, made the farther ridges like 
green hills. Then, because the shrubs pushed up so 
frequently, the desert was but a cultivated country, 
overdrifted with sand. 

At sunset we reached a solitary palm-grove, an 
oasis in the waste, and the camp was pitched be- 
neath the trees. The Germans were not far away, 
but they, like the Cairene merchant, concluded that 
we were Ingleez Howadji, but, unlike him, did not 



INTO THE DESERT. 



67 



expose themselves to our civilities. Strangers are 
now as little likely to make social overtures to John 
Bull as he is to receive them. 

The palms were shrubby and scant. But the stars 
were bright among their boughs as we looked from 
the tent door — and as the Pacha wrapped himself in 
his capote and lay down to sleep, I asked him what 
the Prophet said of palms. 

In reply the Pacha said disagreeable things of the 
Prophet. But the learned say, that his favorite 
fruits were fresh dates and water melons. Honor, 
said he, your paternal aunt the date-palm, for she 
was created of the earth of which Adam was form- 
ed. Whoso eateth, said the Prophet, a mouthful of 
water-melon, God writeth for him a thousand good 
works and cancelleth a thousand evil works, and 
raiseth him a thousand degrees, for it came from 
paradise. 

— " Golden Sleeve," said the Pacha, with slum- 
berous vagueness — " water-melons for breakfast." 



X. 



MIRAGE. 

Henry MaujStdrell Having been shut out all 
night from a shekh's house in Syria, during a pelt- 
ing rain, revenged himself the next morning by re- 
cording that the three great virtues of the Moham- 
medan religion are a long beard, prayers of the 
same standard, and a kind of Pharisaical super- 
ciliousness. 

Our uninvited guest, the shekh's father, possess- 
ed those virtues in perfection. Enjoying our escort, 
eating our food, warming himself at our fire, the 
testy old gentleman evidently thought that our in- 
fidel presences cumbered the earth, and soiled by 
contact his own Muslim orthodoxy. He was there- 
fore perpetually flinging himself upon his little 
donkey and shambling toward the horizon, with a 
sniff of disgust, to air his virtue from further conta- 
gion in the pure desert atmosphere. We were as 
continually overhauling him turned up against a 
wind-sheltered sand bank, and, in meditative soli- 
tude, smoking our choice Latakia. 



MIRAGE. 



69 



It was our daily amusement to watch the old 
Ishmael, whose mind and life were like the desert 
around us, putting contemptuously away from us 
upon his tottering donkey, his withered ancles and 
clumsy shoes dangling along over the sand — away 
from us, stately travellers upon MacWhirter and El 
Shiraz, for whom Shakespeare sang, and Plato 
thought, and Kaphael painted, and to whom the old 
Ishmael' s country, its faith, and its history, were but 
incidents in the luxury of life. 

Yet Ishmael maintained the balance well, and 
never relaxed his sniffing contempt for the Howadji, 
who, in turn, mused upon the old man, and figured 
the strange aspect of his mind. 

Like a bold bare landscape it must have been, or 
rather like the skeleton of a landscape. For Ishmael 
was not true Bedoueen enough to have clothed the 
naked lines and cliffs of his mind with the verdure 
of romantic reverie. At evening he did not listen 
to the droning talk of the other Arabs over the fire, 
but curled himself up in his blankets, and went to 
sleep. By day he sought solitude and dozed in his 
own smoke, and whenever he spoke it was in the 
querulous tone of soured old age. 

His whole life had been a monotonous tale end- 
lessly repeated. From Cairo to Gaza — from Gaza 
to Cairo. As a boy, tugging the caravan along, 



70 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



with the halter drawn over his shoulder. As a man, 
in supreme command, superintending the whole. 
As a grandsire, cantering away from infidel dogs to 
smoke their tobacco tranquilly in the sun. Life 
must have been a mystery to Ishmael could he have 
ever meditated it, and the existence of a western 
world, Christians, and civilization, only explained 
by some vague theory of gratuitous tobacco for the 
faithful. 

As I watched his bright young grandson, Hamed, 
leading the train, I could not but ruefully reflect 
that the child is father of the man, and foresee that 
he would only ripen into an Ishmael, and smoke the 
ungrown Latakia of Howadji 3^et unborn. 

But through all speculations, and dreams, and 
jokes, and intermittent conversation — for you are 
naturally silent upon the desert — your way is still 
onward over the sand, and Jerusalem and Damascus 
approach slowly, slowly, two and a half miles an 
hour. 

In the midst of your going, a sense of intense 
weariness and tedium seizes your soul. Rock, rock 
— -jerk, jerk — upon the camel. You are sick of the 
thin withered slip of a tail in front, and the gaunt, 
stiff movement of the shapeless, tawny legs before 
you, and you vainly turn in your seat for relief from 
the eyes of Khadra— vainly, for the curtains of 



MIRAGE. 



71 



the palanquin are drawn ; the warm morning sun- 
light has been mandragora to her, and she is 
sleeping. 

The horizon is no longer limitless, and of an ocean 
grandeur. The sluggish path trails through a defile 
of glaring sand, whose sides just contemptuously 
obstruct your view, and exasperate you because they 
are low, and of no fine outline. Switzerland has 
vanished to-day, and the Arabia that chokes 
your eye is Arabia Felix no longer. Your brow 
flushes and your tongue is parched, and leering over 
the rim of the monotonous defile, fever points at 
you, mockingly, its long, lank finger, and scornfully, 
as to a victim not worth the wooing. Sufibcated in 
the thick, hot air, the sun smites you, and its keen 
arrows dart upward, keener, from the ground. The 
drear silence, like a voice in nightmare, whispers — 
" You dared to tempt me ;" and with fresh fury of 
shining, and a more stifling heat, the horrors of the 
mid'desert encompass you. 

But in the midst of your weariness and despair, 
more alluring than the mirage of cpol lakes and 
green valleys to the eye of the dying Bedoueen, a 
voice of running waters sings through your memory 
— the sound of streams gurgling under the village 
bridge at evening, and the laughter of boys bathing 
there — yourself a boy, yourself plunging in the 



72 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



deep, dark coolness — and so, wearied and fevered in 
the deserfc of Arabia, you are overflowed by the 
memory of your youth, and to you, as to Khadra, 
the sun has been mandragora, and you are sleeping. 

You cannot tell how long you sleep and doze. 
You fancy, when your eyes at length open, that 
you are more deeply dreaming. 

For the pomp of a wintry landscape dazzles your 
awaking. The sweeps and drifts of the sand-hills 
among which you are winding, have the sculptur- 
esque grace of snow. They descend in strange corru- 
gations to a long level lake — a reach of water frozen 
into transparent blue ice, streaked with white sifted 
snow that has overblown it. The seeming lake is 
circled with low, melancholy hills. They are bare, 
like the rock-setting of solitary mountain tarns. The 
death of wintry silence broods over the whole, but 
the sky is cloudless, and the sun sits supreme over 
the miraculous landscape. Vainly you rally your 
thoughts, and smile at the perfect mirage. Its lines 
do not melt in your smiles, and the spectacle be- 
comes more solemn in the degree that you are 
conscious of the delusion. Never, upon its eternal 
Alpine throne — never, through the brief, brilliant 
days of New-England December, was winter more 
evident and entire. 

And when you hear behind you, sole sound in 



MIRAGE. 



73 



the desert, the shrill tenor of the Armenian's camel- 
driver, chanting in monotonous refrain songs whose 
meaning you can only imagine, because Khadra 
draws aside the curtains to listen, and because you 
have seen that the tall, swarthy Syrian is enamored 
of Khadra— then it is not Arabia, nor Switzerland 
nor New England, but a wintry glade of Laplan&, 
and a solitary singing to his reindeer. 

This is not a dream, nor has leering fever 
touched you with his finger; but it is a mystery 
of the desert. You have eaten an apple of the 
Hesperides. For the Bedoueen poets have not 
alone the shifting cloud-scenery to garnish their 
romances ; but thus, unconsciously to them, the 
forms of another landscape and of another life than 
theirs, are marshalled before their eyes, and their 
minds are touched with the beauty of an unknown 
experience. 

In this variety of aspect, in endless calm, the 
desert surpasses the sea. It is seldom an unbroken 
level, and from the quality of its atmosphere, slight 
objects are magnified, and a range of mounds will 
often masque as a group of goodly hills. Even in 
the most interrupted reaches, the horizon is rarely 
a firm line, but the mirage breaks it, so that the 
edge of the landscape is always quivering and un- 
certain. 
4 



74 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Pleasant, after the wild romance of such a desert 
day — romance, which the snn in setting closes—to 
reach the camping-ground, to gurgle in MacWhir- 
ter's ear with the guttural harshness that he under- 
stands as the welcome signal of rest, and to feel 
him, not without a growl of ill-humor, quaking 
and rolling beneath you, and finally, with a half- 
sudden start, sinking to the ground. 

You tie his bent fore-knee together, with the 
halter which goes around his head ; and you turn 
to see that the tent is not spread over stones, which 
would not stuff your pillow softly. Then, return- 
ing, you observe that MacWhirter with his fore-leg 
still bent and bound to his head, is limping upon 
the three serviceable legs to browse upon chance 
shrubs, and to assert his total independence of you, 
and contempt of your precautions. 

Meanwhile, Khadra steps out of her palanquin, 
and while her father's camp is pitched, she shakes 
out the silken fullness of her shintyan, and strolls 
off upon the desert. The old Armenian slips the 
pad from the back of his white mare, for he does 
not ride in a saddle, and stands in everybody's 
way, in his long, blue broadcloth kaftan, taking 
huge pinches of snuff. 

The commander, relieved of his arsenal, bustles 
among our Arabs, swearing at them lustily when- 



MIRAGE. 75 

ever he approaches the Howadji, apparently con- 
vinced that everything is going v^ell, so long as he 
makes noise enough. 

" Therein not peculiar," murmurs the Pacha, 
rolled up in his huge woollen capote, and smoking 
a contemplative chibouque. 

The tents are pitched, the smoke curls to the 
sky, and the howling wilderness is tamed by the 
domestic preparations of getting tea. 

The sun also is tamed, our great romancer, our 
fervent poet, our glorious painter, who has made 
the day a poem and a picture ; who has peopled 
memory with sweet and sad imagery ; who, like 
Jesus, brought a sword, yet like him, has given us 
rest. He, too, is tamed, and his fervor is failing. 
Yet as he retires through the splendor of the 
vapory architecture of his pavilion in the West, 
he looks at us once more, like a king from his pal- 
ace windows. 



XI. 



UNDER THE SYRIAN STARS. 

So glides away the slow caravan of desert days. 

But when they have passed over the western ho- 
rizon, out of the east come the soft-footed evening 
hours. The camels are tethered, the Arabs crone 
over the fire, one bursts into a wailing minor song. 
The night swallows the sound, and only the stars 
shine. 

And even as you might vaguely discern the sheen 
of Persian silks, and scent the odor of rare fruits in 
a caravan from Bagdad, passing your camp in the 
moonlight, so through the twilight of reverie pass 
the stately forms of noble thoughts, and the night 
is perfumed with hopes that love the future. 

— Like a night of meditation after a busy day, is 
the desert journey after our busy life. 

And still, as in midnight musings, wherever you 
may be, your whole individual experience lies be- 
fore you like a transparent lake, into which you 
look and see the coral and pearl of your childhood 
lying unchanged at the bottom, and above them, 



UNDEE THE SYRIAN STARS. 77 

like gold fish that gleam and go, the restless ambi- 
tions of your youth — and floating upon the surface, 
the chips and weed.s and fading flowers, like the 
chances of your present life — even so do they 
recur to you in your desert separation from your 
ordinary career, and there you can measure them 
and compare. 

Under the Syrian stars, measuring, without the 
struggle of contact, the purposes of life, you renew 
your vows to the truth which life forgets; and 
dedicate anew to the unknown God, the altar of 
your heart that was sadly overgrown. 

That, be sure, is "the improvement" of this long 
sermon in the wilderness. That is its permanent use 
to you as a man, however its picturesque and resplen- 
dent illustrations may have pleased you as a scholar 
and a poet. At that distance from the Babylons 
in which your life is led, and in which the building 
of Babels goes on so zealously, you can better esti- 
mate the aims and rewards and cordons bleus, promised 
by the builders to all diligent workmen. 

Under the Syrian stars you can touch the earth 
again and renew your strength. 

Knowing that the reputations and the cordons Ileus 
are not awarded to the sincere, but to the success- 
ful, are you ready to serve the veiled goddess— -th? 
inscrutable Isis — and let success go ? 



78 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



But if it is hard to say so here, where the shackles 
of custom are loosened — hard, although your whole 
heart should cry within you, as Hamlet's father, 
from the ground, "swear!" — yet how much harder, 
will it be when these stars have set to you forever, 
and you are again confronted with our immitigable 
Mammon. 

We love success, but who are the successful ? 

Cresus, or Plato, or Napoleon ? 

For though a man should heap up millions, if he 
cannot use it — ^if it go foolishly, and the world is 
not alleviated — if he be his own pander and not 
God's almoner, then money is but a cumbrous armor, 
which he has rivetted uBon his limbs and which 
prevents his fighting. 

Success is something more, I dream in the desert, 
than gratified vanity or the applause of toadies and 
zanies. 

It is sad to see the poets shrink before the so- 
called practical men, because it is an image of the 
triumph of sense and of material things. I do not 
quarrel with the violet that it is not a rose. That 
a man has no love of letters, or of science, or of art, 
is no reproach to him ; it is a misfortune. But that 
he regards those who have those loves as unwise, 
dreamy and inpracticable men, is the mole's com- 
plaint of the eagle. Tasso skulked about the garden 



UNDER THE SYRIAN STARS. 



79 



of the villa cl'Este, reproved by the sharp common 
sense of the Duke. But if you rebuke Tasso for 
skulking, do not forget that it v^as only the awk- 
wardness of a young nobleman before his exact and 
accomplished valet — as I remember seeing a gentle- 
man unused to clubs, confused in a London Club 
House, by the bland assurance of the smooth flunkey 
at the door. 

— Who, then, are the successful? 

Was Shakespeare successful because he was the 
greatest of poets, and sowed those twilight groves 
of meditation in which all men love to walk? I 
fear no more than the gardener, who is putting in 
young saplings to-day, under which, in a century, 
his descendents shall play. 

— Or Michael Angelo? But history shows no 
sadder man. Or Beethoven, or Mozart, or the last 
new poet whom the papers praise ? 

Once more remember the city to which you are 
going. Was he who entered it amid hosannas and 
under waving palm boughs, successful ? Who shall 
dare to say? This much, at least, is clear, that none 
of these achieved what would be called success, in 
any of the Babylons in which we live, not in Lon- 
don or Paris, not in Vienna or New York. 

Success is a delusion. It is an attainment — but 
who attains ? It is the horizon always bounding 



80 



THE HOWADJI ITf SlKiA. 



our path, and therefore never gained. The pope, 
triple-crowned, and borne, with flabella, through 
St. Peter's, is not successful ; for he might be canon- 
ized into a saint. Pygmalion, before his perfect 
statue, is not successful ; for it might live. Raphael, 
finishing the Sistine Madonna, is not successful, for 
her beauty has revealed to him a fairer and an un- 
attainable beauty. The merchant is not successful, 
for there is no end to making money ; nor the last 
new poet — because, if he be a poet, he knows that 
he cannot write the music of the spheres. 

Life, say the wise and the elders, grows sadder 
and sadder, and age strips it of delusions as autumn 
winds strip the trees. Sir Horace Walpole, the 
artificial man of an artificial age, who had been 
fortunate, as few men are, said in his decline: 
*' Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tra- 
gedy to those who feel ;" and again, more bitterly . 

Life is a farce, and its last scene should not be 
mournful." As if no man could live and occupy his 
just place in men's regards, Lord Bacon says: 
" Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to 
good fame and extinguisheth envy." And, although 
admitting that a man may obtain " worthy ends and 
expectations" — he adds, with alluring music : But, 
above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle in Nunc 



UNDER THE SYRIAN STARS. 81 

From Solomon to the last book I read, the refram 
is the same : " Vanity of vanities," says he, and 
my author echoes — " Like all lives this is a tragedy ; 
high hopes, noble efforts ; under thickening difficul- 
ties and impediments ; ever new nobleness of valiant 
effort, and the result, death, with conquests by no 
means corresponding." 

The night- wind howls mockingly into the desert, 
" Success, success!" — and its echo in your heart is 
that sad story of Sir Joshua Eeynolds. When an 
old man, he was standing one day before one of his 
early pictures, lost in pensive thought : " I was 
thinking," said he, *' of the promise of this picture, 
which I can never fulfill !" 

As you draw the tent-curtain and shut out the 
stars, you will swear by them to honor no more 
than is honorable, the practical talent that rules the 
world ; and for the motto of your dreams, you will 
choose the wise old Chinese proverb : " The world's 
nonsense is the sense of God." 
4+ 



XII. 



A TEUCE. 

The faithful reader who has clung with me to 
MacWhirter up to this chapter, may, if he will, re- 
gard the eleventh whence he has just emerged as an 
evening vapor rolling over the desert, and settling 
for awhile upon our camp. 

But, as it disperses, and the day breaks, and we 
are about to mount again, I say to him that the re- 
cord of a desert journey must needs be more of sen- 
sation than of sight. With ink and types, which 
allow no perspective, no light, and shade, and color, 
only the pictures can be painted to which such 
means are competent. Therefore, how can the 
traveller most vividly figure to the reader who is not 
a student of some especial point, the regions of 
which he tells. 

Statistics hardly suffice. The golden ball of St. 
Peter's is four hundred and ninety -four feet from the 
pavement. But that statement, even supported by 
the fact that the breadth of the facade is more than 
iour hundred feet, does not leave St. Peter's a per- 



A TEUCE. 



83 



manent figure in the mind. Nor does the ingenious 
combination with those truths of the consideration 
that the great nave is fretted with gold, and that 
the four huge piers which support the dome are 
faced with marble, and that the baldacchino or 
canopy over the high altar is of bronze, stripped 
by a pope from the Pantheon, impress the mind 
with v/hat it wishes to know of St. Peter's. 

But the impression of all this wonderful architec- 
tural combination, and the associations which 
wreathe it, in a judicious and sensitive mind, with 
invisible ornaments of an unknown grace, if accu- 
rately reproduced by the pen, shall build St. Peter's 
again, and found it deep in your mind forever. 

Is it not strange, even allowing all that I have 
previously claimed for travellers who tell their 
travels, that their books are so cold and spectral ? 

Before and after I went to the East, I read the 
numberless volumes that record the many eastern 
tours of learned and poetic men. But the most, 
either despairing of imparting the true oriental flavor 
to their works, thinking, perhaps, that eastern en- 
thusiasm must needs exhale in the record, as the 
Neapolitans declare that the LachrymcB Christi can 
have the genuine flavor only in the very Vesuvian 
vineyard where it grows — or hugging some forlorn 
hope that the reader's imagination will warm the 



84 



THE HOWADJI 



IN 



STRIA. 



dry bones of detail into life — most of the travellers 
write their books as bailiffs take an inventory of 
attached furniture. — Item. One great p}Tamid, four 
hundred and ninety-eight feet high. — Item. One 
tomb in a rock, with two bushels of mummy dust. 
— Item. Two hundred and fifty miles over a de- 
sert. — Item. One grotto at Bethlehem, and con- 
tents — to wit: ten golden lamj^s, twelve silver 
ditto, twenty yards of tapestry, and a marble pave- 
ment. And with this ghostly dance of death 
shaken before our eyes, we are invited to contem- 
plate the gorgeous pageant of oriental life. 

The reader, surely, will not suspect me of slight- 
ing the claims of exact knowledge. Scientific re- 
search embodies its results in concise and colorless 
pages. Its aim is to state a fact, not to impart an 
impression. The latter, hoAvever, is the object of a 
general book of travels, and the facts must yield 
only their juice and their aroma to the traveller, if 
he would share his pleasure with others. Guide- 
books are not absorbingly interesting, and give 
small idea of the countries they describe. Guide- 
books are indispensable to the traveller, but they 
are surely not the standard of his own account of 
the objects of which they give him the locality. 

Look at Lewis's Egyptian pictures, even ai 
Horace Vernet's ideally conventional paintings of 



A TRUCE. 



85 



eastern life, and revelling in the luxuiy of their 
color and form, consider what books men have 
v^ritten of these things. Reflect, that if Lewis and 
Vernet were using the means of Titian and Claude, 
the book-writers professed to use those of Shake- 
speare and Shelley. The Arabian Nights and Hafiz 
are more valuable for their practical communication 
of the spirit and splendor of oriental life, than all 
the books of eastern travel ever written, of which, 
for the general reader, Eothen is certainly the best, 
being brilliant, picturesque, humorous, and poetic. 
Yet Eothen is still a cockney — never puts off the 
Englishman, and is suspicious of his own enthu- 
siasm, which, therefore, sounds a little exaggerated. 

— The caravan is not yet out of sight, gracious 
reader, we shall overtake it at a bound when we 
will ; let MacWhirter, therefore, browse, while I 
hold you here a moment longer. 

It confirms the tenor of our thought in this chap- 
ter, that the most satisfactory impressions of places 
we have never seen are derived from poetry. I 
would also say, in some cases, from music ; for I 
know no song, no book, no picture, so utterly and 
exquisitely Venetian, as the Gondola-lied of Men- 
delssohn. If the listener truly hear that, he knows 
what Venice truly is. 

In Rome you find yourself repeating Byron and 



86 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Goethe's hexameters, then, when you most feel 
Kome, and in Venice it is Byron again, and the un- 
metred poetry of Beckford, whose lines recur. It 
is not, I believe, so much because they treat of the 
objects you are seeing, as because they seem to you 
the natural, the poetic, and therefore, most profound, 
suggestions of the character of the place. And in 
the same way, as you advance through the Syrian 
summer, the fragrant and voluptuous imagery of 
Solomon's song is the most felicitous expression of 
your experience there. 

The reason of this is, surely, that the permanent 
interest of various lands is intellectual. We like 
them for what they are to us, rather than for what 
they are in themselves. Yet we cannot know what 
they are, nor assimilate them to our own advantage, 
unless we are steeped in their spirit. We must be 
Egyptian, Syrian, Greek, Roman, or we shall never 
know what Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Rome mean. 

Hence arises the abiding charm of books of travel, 
which are faithful records of individual experience, 
under the condition, always, that the individual has 
something characteristic and dramatic in his organi- 
zation ; that he is heroic in adventure, or of grace- 
ful and accurate cultivation — the fundamental con- 
dition being, of course, that there is a sympathy be- 
tween the nature of the man and the country he visits. 



A TEUCE 



87 



Aubrey de Vere's Picturesque Sketches of Greece 
and Turkey, and Alexander Henry's Adventures in 
Canada, are models of the heroic and the scholarly 
books of travel. And, as the view taken by a hu- 
morous genius of subjects with which it has little 
sympathy, are genuinely comic and therefore valu- 
able, Dickens' Pictures from Italy is a very enter- 
taining book. 

— ^MacWhirter is disappearing ; but I have one 
more word. 

Akin to what we are saying, and indirectly illus- 
trating its truth, is the fact that we learn more of 
what we wish to know of past times, namely, of 
the aspect of their life and character, from the ro- 
mance of history than from history itself 

The man who knew no more of English history 
than Shakespeare had taught him, was not ignorant. 
Scott, in Kenilworth and the Talisman, makes us 
free not only of the courts of Elizabeth and of the 
lion-hearted Richard, but of their times as well. 
And with us, Hawthorne has made appreciable in 
most living reality the Puritan spirit and form of 
early New England, as Irving, in his Knickerbocker 
and Hudson stories, makes the reader a burgher of 
New Amsterdam. 

These men, these poets, are but travellers into 
the dusky realms of the past, whom the genius of 



88 



THE HOVV^ADJI IN SYRIA. 



the past graciously receives and authorizes to speak, 
for him. 

— MacWhirter is fairly out of sight ' 

Such, heroic reader — of this kind, must be your 
story of the desert, if you hope that those distant 
friends will see what you are seeing. If you think 
otherwise, let us here courteously part company, 
and you shall retire in goodly society. 

John Carnes, Esq., and Lord Castlereagh, and 
Volney — Ali Bey, and Eichardson, and Clarke, and 
W. Gr. Browne, that " model for travellers," and a 
Xerxes-host of quartos, octavos, and duodecimos, 
will tell you all that you will not find upon our 
pages. They have done their work too well to 
have left any necessity of our doing the same. The 
sights of this journey they have fully, and accu- 
rately, and learnedly described. 

But we, the latest of them all, grateful for the 
services they have rendered, and for the conveni- 
ence which they prove to us, have yet something to 
say which they had not, and that is, our own im 
pression of w^hat they saw. 



XIII. 



OASIS. 

There came suddenly a strip of green land* 

It was like a branch of flowers yet fresh, drift- 
ing out to a ship at sea. The birds sang clearly 
in the early morning, high over our heads flashing 
in the bright air. The damp sand was delicately 
printed with the tracks of birds. The desert lay 
around us in low hillocks, like the long billows of a 
retiring ocean. The air blew fresh and sweet from 
the west. Fresh and sweet, for it was the breath 
of the Mediterranean. 

And suddenly we came upon green land. 

The country was like a rolling pasture. Grass 
and dandelions, and a myriad familiar wild flowers 
lay, wreaths of welcome, at our feet. There were 
clumps of palms and single acacias. The cactus, 
also, that we call Indian fig, shapeless, prickly, but 
full of the sun and fat with promise. 

The wind blew, the birds sang, the trees waved. 
They were the outposts of life, whence it nodded 
and beckoned to us, and threw us flowers as we 
emerged from the death of the desert. 



90 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

It was a dream in beauty and in fleetness. Mac- 
Whirter — incarnate common-sense — bore us straight 
through the dream into the desert again. 

They receded, they sank into vapory distance, • 
those beautiful forms — the waving trees, the singing 
birds. Yet they were Palestine, they the symbols 
of the Holy Land. Promises and hopes, they sing 
and wave upon the ending desert, and I greeted 
them as the mariner in that ship at sea greets the 
south and romantic Spain, in the bough of blossoms 
floating by him. 

The strip of green land passed, and we entered 
upon pure Sahara. It was the softest, most pow- 
dery sand ; tossed by light winds it drew sharp 
angles, glittering white angles, against the dense 
blue. The last trace of green vanished as w^e passed 
deeper among the ridges. The world was a chaotic 
ocean of sparkling white sand. 

The desert was, in that moment, utter and hope- 
less desert, but was never desert again. Bare, and 
still, and bright, it was soft beyond expression, in 
the fitful game of shadows played upon it by the 
sun — for vapors were gathering overhead. 

Suddenly, around one of the sharp angles — and I 
could not, until then, tell if it were near or far — > 
suddenly a band of armed Arabs came riding to- 
wards us. They curvetted, and dashed, and cara- 



OASIS. 



91 



coled upon spirited horses, leaping, and running, 
and prancing round imperturbable MacWhirter and 
El Shiraz, who plodded sublimely on. The Arabs 
came close to us, and greeted our men with endless 
kissings and salaams. They chatted and called 
aloud ; their weapons flashed and rattled, their robes 
flowed in the wind — then, suddenly, like a cloud of 
birds," they wheeled from us — 

Tirra, lirra ! tirra, lirra ! 
Sang Sir Lancelot !" 

and away they sped over the horizon. 

We plodded on. The eyes of Khadra smiled de- 
light at the glittering party as it disappeared. The 
Armenian's little white mare paced toilingly through 
the loose sand. It was high noon, and, advancing 
silently, we passed over the near horizon of the 
ridges, and came upon a plain of hard sand. Not 
far away lay a town of white stone houses, and the 
square walls of a fort — and beyond them all, the 
lustrous line of the sea. 

It was el Harish, on the edge of the desert. The 
boys and girls ran out and surrounded us with star- 
ing curiosity. Some were running horses, some 
passed on little donkeys, and others were unloading 
camels. Then came a swarthy-faced official in tat- 
tered garments. He demanded our passports, and 



92 



THE IIOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



to him, inly lamenting that " the shadow of God 
upon earth" had dwindled to such as this, we 
delivered them. 

Under the crescent moon the camp was pitched. 
And under the crescent moon all Arabia was but a 
sea-beach. For unmitigated sand lay from the 
Mediterranean to the Euphrates. 

The curious children flocked out of the town, and 
watched, with profound attention, the ceremonies of 
infidel tea-making, and the dinner of unbelievers. 
The muezzin called from the minaret, and the chil- 
dren left us to the sky, and the sand, and the 
sea. 

The Mediterranean called to us through the dark- 
ness. The moonlight was so vague that the sea 
and the desert were blent. The world was sunk 
in mysterious haze. We were encamped, it seemed 
on the very horizon, and looked off into blank 
space. 

After the long silence of the desert, it was strange 
to hear the voice of the sea. It was Homer's sea, 
the only sea of romance and fame ; over which 
Helen sailed and the Argonauts — out of which sailed 
Columbus. It was St. John's sea and Alexander's 
— Hadrian's and the Crusaders'. Upon its shore 
stood Carthage, and across its calm the Syrens 
sang. 



OASI^. 



93 



These fames and figures passed. But the poet's 
words remain ; 

" I love all waate 
And solitary places,, where we taste 
The pleasure of believing what we see 
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be." 



XIV. 



MISHAP. 

We had crossed the desert. We had reached, 
once morC) permanent human habitations, although 
we were yet far from cultivated land. There was 
no longer any especial danger of dying of thirst, 
or of suffocation in the fiery breath of the wilder- 
ness. 

The sun rose over el Harish, in a white mist. 
The wind blew steadily and warm, and it was a 
sultry day. To the west lay the sea, like a band 
of dense blue vapor ; between the sea and the sky, 
into the east, as far as we could see, went the 
desert. 

The old shekh mounted his donkey and gallopped 
away toward the town. We saw him no more. 
But I have no doubt his supply of tobacco from our 
stores was trebly abundant that morning; and 1 
fancy him still praying and smoking in the mosque 
of el Harish ; for I doubt if prayers of lesser length 
could have entirely purified him from our infidel in- 
fection, liamed, too, left us — the sturdy, bright- 



MISHAP. 



95 



eyed boy who had walked across the desert tugging 
the caravan after him. We were all sorry to part 
with him ; but I was grieved that he did not seem 
sorry to go. 

The Armenian was detained by some difficulty 
with his camel-driver ; and the German Moguls had 
preceded ns. Our camels had gone for water, and 
it was late in the morning when we lost sight of the 
sea, and left el Harish. The country was a bound- 
less, barren, rolling prairie, studded at intervals with 
bright blue, yellow, and white field flowers. Our 
way lay through a broad, shallow valley- — a wadee 
or water-course. The low hills on the side swere 
sandy and shrub-tufted, and in spots, scanty patches 
of grain trembled in the wind. 

Suddenly another group of horsemen, imposing 
in numbers, and rattling and flashing, dashed for- 
ward from the horizon on the full run, and wheeled, 
and danced around us, so that we summoned the 
commander to explain. 

He answered, with great importance, that a Pacha 
of very remarkable tails was just in the rear, with 
his hareem and attendants ; and that he was jour- 
neying from Damascus to Cairo, being no less a 
personage than the collector of revenues for " the 
Shadow of God on Earth," from the Pachalics of 
Syria and Egypt. 



96 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



While we spoke, the caravan appeared. The 
Pacha satin state in a palanquin, borne between two 
camels, and surrounded by a brilliant crowd of arm- 
ed retainers. Several scores of camels followed him, 
bearing his wives, slaves, and luggage, and a body of 
soldiers closed the rear. It was a handsome pageant 
and passed on. 

We paused to lunch, and in the azure distance of 
noon, a group of gazelles leaped and ran. Only the 
delicate grace of their play was outlined upon the 
sky. It was soothing as a lullaby of lutes, and as I 
lay in the warm noon, dozing and musing, I dream- 
ed that the large eyes of the Armenian girl were 
looking down upon me from a glowing bower upon 
a rugged, yellow mountain peak, — and lo ! the 
beautiful Khadra passing upon her camel. 

The commander tarried behind, when we mounted, 
and we were swaying along drowsily, as becalmed 
ships swing upon tropical seas — I, for my part, see- 
ing wonderful visions in the moonlight of Khadra's 
eyes — when suddenly I heard a half cry, and the 
steady thump of heavy motion. 

Turning immediately, I beheld the golden-sleeved 
commander approaching, all too speedily for his dig- 
nity and safety. He had fallen far behind, and his 
camel. Pomegranate, perceived upon starting, that 
the caravan was vanishing before him, and that 



MISHAP. 



*97 



only a hasty flight woald bring him again among 
his peers. Thereupon, just as the adipose com- 
mander, after lunching, was duly settling himself 
into his seat, and had begun somnolently to smoke, 
Pomegranate shook the halter from his head by an 
ingenious movement, and set forward upon the full 
trot, with a total disregard of Mohammed's digest- 
ive functions. 

He, as if an earthquake heaved the mountain 
upon which his city of refuge was builded, drop- 
ped his chibouque and clutched at the saddle, 
moaning and crying aloud for succor. But the 
implacable and complacent Pomegranate, solely 
intent upon joining his fellows, jogged horribly 
on. I saw the unhappy commander caged in his 
arsenal, that rattled mockingly around him, vio- 
lently shaking, and with a piteous look of despair 
upon his face, which betrayed his consciousness of 
helplessness, and that he, the arsenal, and all the 
trappings, were slowly slipping off toward the tail. 

" 0 gentlemen!" he gasped in irregular syllables, 
as Pomegranate inexorably advanced. 

" Stop him, Mohammed !" cried the Pacha. 

"Oh — damn! — non e possibile,^^ shook out the 
Muslim Pickwick, as he clattered up in the rear. 

Pomegranate, intent upon revenging in Moham 
meil's person all that camels have ever suffered 

5 



98 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



from men, would not stop as he reached us, but 
pushed sternly on. 

" Oh ! gentlemen," groaned Golden Sleeve, as 
he slowly and inevitably slid toward the tail of his 
beast. 

But the gentlemen were faint with laughter, and 
the delicious eyes of Khadra swam with delight at 
the spectacle. 

The crisis came. Weeping bitterly and grasping 
at the carpets upon which he sat, and which were 
slipping with him, down upon the desert he sank, 
a promiscuous heap of man, weapons, cloaks, car- 
pets, water-bottles, and blankets, and there he sat 
with legs outstretched, the toes of his red slippers 
curved up at the sky, and wofully staring back 
upon the Howadji and the Armenians, who, ready 
to fall from their own camels with excess of laugh- 
ter, hurried to the rescue. 

We came up, and the commander did not move. 
He sat upon the ground pouring out terrific Arabic 
oaths, yet more in sorrow than in anger. For with 
the air of a man irretrievably injured, and not 
deigning us a solitary glance, he piled .Pomegran- 
ate again with carpets, and went forward once 
more with melancholy resignation, to the other 
vicissitudes of life. 



XV.* 



ADVENTURE. 

My reader is not heroic, perhaps, and has not 
clung to MacWhirter, but is listlessly turning these 
pages to strike upon the story of adventures, even 
as the news-boy in the pit of the Chatham falls 
asleep at the opening of the play in which Mr. 
Kirby performs, but with the stricfest injunction 
to his companion to be awakened at the crisis in 
the fifth act — " Because I want to see him die ; for 
Billy Kirby dies prime." 

What is a desert journey without adventures? 
And what does the arsenal that envelopes the com- 
mander imply ? 

Often we seemed to be on the verge of adven- 
ture. At certain spots, when evening fell, and the 
camp was pitched, the sage commander scanned 
the desert suspiciously, and looked solemnly at the 
Howadji, whispering with many shrugs, that this 
especial spot was a haunt for ''^had peopled And 
as, uniformly, after such intimations, and after dark, 
a group of men appeared and offered to mount guard 



100 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



over US all night, for a consideration, it became clear, 
from the result, that it was only a simple conspi- 
racy to extort money. 

Oq such occasions our shekh was summoned and 
informed in council tliat we had contracted that he 
should pay all tolls ; that for our own parts we 
wished no guard, and should certainly pay for none, 
and that if any ill-advised Bedoueen undertook fco 
compel payment, the consequences (and here the 
Pacha clicked the lock of the one-barrel, and I 
handled my pistols abstractedly) were not upon our 
consciences. 

This alFable treatment of prospective danger was 
always successful. The danger remained prospec- 
tive. There was a larger group about the fire those 
nights, and in the morning the Howadji were told, 
as if to awaken remorse, that after guarding us all 
night, the men had retired, after the shekh had 
paid them — and in a vague tone, like an appendix, 
it was remarked, that the shekh had no superfluous 
funds for such purposes. The obdurate Howadji 
always smiled and answered that they were glad 
the shekh had so dutifully fulfilled his contract. 

It is impossible, however, not to feel upon the 
desert that you are completely at the mercy of the 
Arabs. The feeling does not rise into apprehension, 
because, like animals, they do not fully comprehend 



ADVENTURE. 



101 



the fact themselves, and because their ignorance of 
possible consequences makes those consequences 
more appalling to their fancy. They are, too, 
naturally peaceable. 

Yet as a man who had been always protected by 
law, whose life was never fairly committed to his own 
keeping, I wondered, with some desire, whether we 
were not to have an adventure. As every man for 
the first time going to sea, hopes for a storm, as if 
otherwise, he could not know the true majesty of 
the ocean, so, abandoned to the desert, I half 
wished to make the sense of that abandonment 
real, by the wild lawlessness of a skirmish. 

I say half-wished, because, however strong may 
be your spirit of adventure, if you are not a savage 
or a brute, the chances of killing or being killed, 
to gratify a whim, are not fascinating. Seen on 
the pages of books by warm fires, a cloud of dust 
on the horizon, and the ringing bound of armed 
men seeking to do battle with yourself and your 
party, are agreeable and exciting. 

And I found in Cairo, at Shepherd's dinner-table, 
bands of brave gentlemen on their way from the in- 
terior of English counting-houses to similar retreats 
in India, who regretted extremely that time did not 
perniit them "to run into the desert and have a 
crack at the Arabs." 



102 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



I was sorry for them, but have since been com- 
forted by hearing that brave men have always time 
and chance for bravery. 

The genuine excitement of danger, and the heroic 
impatience of social conventions that tend to per- 
sonal effeminacy are very intelligible, and I know 
the exulting leap of the heart with which a man 
steps beyond the charmed circle of legal pro- 
tection, and relying upon his own right arm, 
longs 

" To drink delight of battlfe with his peers." 

But desert fighting is, at best, only shooting rob- 
bers. Your tent is a chamber, and the marauding 
Arab a burglar, and you shoot him simply that he 
may not shoot you, or steal your purse. The Pacha, 
indeed, indulged a laudable curiosity — laudable as 
an item of mental experience — to know " how it 
would seem" to shoot a man. 

I suppose that is the extent of the wish for ad- 
venture in prosecuting the desert journey. For 
the first time in your life — if you have escaped 
highway robbery — you find yourself in circum- 
stances that may very easily and naturally compel 
you to the act, and the moment such a thing be- 
comes possible or even probable, the speculation 
ripens into desire, and you scan the horizon impa- 



ADVENTURE. 



103 



tiently for the cloud of dust, and the onslaught of 
murderous Arabs. 

The reality would sadly chill the romance. To 
encounter an enemy in the lonely mid-desert, an 
enemy whose force would be in numbers, with 
whom the excitement of fighting would be only 
the despair of a cornered tiger — whom you could 
not feel to be the " peers" with whom battle 
of any kind is a delight, but beasts only, and 
serpents, and dumb forms of fate ; and in the 
end to leave your bones to bleach on the lonely 
mid-desert — how does that look on the pages of 
books by warm fires ? It is an unmitigated 
tragedy. 

Tragical enough, and in the same kind, was the 
fate of the young English and French oflBcers who 
perished in our early Indian wars. They fell with- 
out the glorious consciousness of equal foes. Yet 
even these men, although bereaved of the glory 
of honorable battle, snared and circumvented by 
savages, fought for their country, and their country 
remembers them. 

The aspects of a desert combat thus sweep over 
your mind, as you meditate them upon MacWhir- 
ter. But on the whole, you wish you might .try it. 
For, after all, how many of the Syrian travellers 
who have fought, were injured? Yet many of 



104 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



them knew until their last day, " how it seems" ta 
shoot a man. 

Besides, it is not very serious business. Many a 
desert camp of Howadji has been startled by the 
shrill cry of " Bedoueen, Bedoueen," and springing 
up amid the darkness and confusion, and popping 
and flashing of guns and pistols, there was all the 
dismay of a surprised army, with vague, bitter 
thoughts of home and of vultures nibbling carrion 
upon the sands, and all the panorama of past joys 
and future woe was revealed by one such moment, 
as all the east and west by a lightning flash at 
midnight. But the fierce tumult died away into 
some stealthy old fellow trying to steal a chicken. 

These things you remember, and wish the Arabs 
would ride up. You are vexed to pass unscathed 
across the wilderness, when Perkyn Pastor and his 
friend were besieged by Bedoueen in a tomb at 
Petra for a whole day, blazing away at them from 
the barricaded door, and with only a barrel of 
porter for rations. Pastor is a man who has had 
experiences — you reflect, with chagrin. Pastor can 
thrill any civilized saloon by commencing carelessly, 
"When I was besieged by Bedoueen, in a tomb at 
Petra-—" 

What have you to say for yourself, you eventless 
Howadji, whose only adventure up to this moment 



ADVENTURE. 



105 



is ignominiously tumbling off MacWhirter at the 
instant of starting ? 

— Softly, softly, good my friends ! — when I saw 
the seven Arabs with spears and matchlocks com- 
ing slowly toward us. — 

— What' have you had adventures? Come, 
Dick, wake up ! Billy Kirby's going to die ! 

5* 



XVI. 



ARMA YIRUMftUE CANO. 

The next morning the venerable Armenian halted 
in a grove of palms, and waited until we came up. 
We found a strange man in fierce altercation with 
him. 

" He insists upon having the camel," said the 
Armenian. 

It was a grim Bedoueen, and he clung to the 
halter of the disputed beast with inexorable tena- 
city. 

" By what right?" inquired the Howadji. 

" He says he sold it, eight years ago, to the Arme- 
jiian's shekh, for six hundred piastres, and not a 
para has yet been paid, so he will take the camel," 
explained Golden Sleeve, between his morning 
whiffs. 

"And this was the reason the shekh would not 
come farther than el Harish ?" 
"Probably, gentlemen." 
"Well?" 

" Well, he must not take him," said the com- 
mander, with the air of the "Lord of three seas." 



ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO. 



107 



The old Armenian was evidently sadly perplexed. 
He rode up and down on his docile little white 
mare, and shot off volleys of mild oaths at the grim 
Bedoueen, with the air of a city merchant stopped 
on the road with his family, who deems it incum- 
bent upon him to be brave and chivalrous, but who 
would be very sorry to provoke unpleasant con- 
sequences. 

"Oh! kooltooluJc! (oh! thunder!) let the camel 
go !" said he, from a little distance, to the Bedoueen ; 
" we can't stop here." 

The grim Bedoueen grasped the halter more 
firmly, and broke out into shrill objurgations and 
threats. 

Khadra looked placidly out of her nest, as if life 
and its chances were but a play, to be enjoyed from 
a palanquin, 

I turned MacWhirter toward the mother, and 
suggested very slowly and distinctly, " Mi rin- 
cresce molto, Sigiiora,^^ (I am very sorry for all this, 
madam.) 

" Si,non capisco, Signore,^^ (yes, sir, I don't under- 
stand,) blandly retorted the lady — and I turned 
MacWhirter back again. 

There was a tumultuous quarrel after this, . during 
which I rode forward and awaited the result. The 
caravan presently followed, and the Pacha told me 



iOS THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

that the Bedoueen had retired into the desert, 
announcing his intention of returning with seven 
other devils worse than himself, and of capturing 
the camel, if necessary, by force of arms. 

By force of arms ? Here was " worshipful intelli- 
gence." Here was the gauntlet deliberately thrown 
down by the " wild tribes of the desert." 

By force of arms ? And I reflected with excusable 
pride upon following Perky n Pastor's Petra ro- 
mance with another, commencing — "Yes, and when 
the Arabs came down upon us near El Harish." I 
kindled with the thought. Stale seemed the life of 
cities — 

" O give me but my Arab steed," 

sang 1. The boundless desert, and combat hand to 
hand. Ho ! St. George for merrie England ! shouted 
I, batteriDg MacWhirter's neck with my cane. 

" What's the matter?" asked the Pacha. 

" In what order shall we give battle ?" replied 1. 

" What battle ?" said the exasperated Pacha. 

— Sure enough, what battle? 

The Howadji plodded on silently. At length 
Mohammed came up and asked — 

" What will the gentlemen do?" 

" Give instant battle," replied I, battering Mac- 
Whirter's neck with renewed vigor. 



ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO. 



109 



The Pacha had no words for me ; but he inquired 
of the commander if the Arab would return. 
^' Most certainly," he replied. 
"How soon?" 

Within an hour and a half " 
" What will he do ?" 

" He and his friends will try to take the camel." 
" Will the old gentleman resist ?" 
" Yes." 

Will there be a fight ?" 
" Probably." 

The Howadji held a council, and agreed, that as 
allies of the venerable Armenian and of his beautiful 
daughter, they were bound in honor to maintain his 
cause. 

But it was perfectly clear that he was in the 
wrong. He had been deceived, certainly, but we 
learn that he did not doubt the justice of the Arab's 
claim, and happily being beyond civilized lands and 
legal conventions, there was no pretence that persist- 
ence in wrong-doing " outlawed" justice and com- 
mon sense. There was no casuist or doctor of civil 
law at hand, to show that as the camel-driver had 
retained the beast, and had enjoyed the use and profit 
of it for eight years, that, therefore, he had estab- 
lished his right to it, and that the Arab might retire 
over the desei t, whistling. 



110 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Eight or wrong, however, the Bedoueen was about 
appealing to the primeval law of force — the only- 
law of property recognized by the great captains of 
all ages. And, right or wrong, we were involved in 
the scrape. 

" Adventure" had descended upon us in an igno- 
minious aspect. Any Arab fighting was unsatisfac- 
tory enough, viewed in respect of glory. But to 
fight with a few miserable men, who simply insisted 
upon a right ; to bring all the modern improvements 
of the science of gunnery to bear upon these poor 
wretches — truly, from him who hath not, thought I, 
shall be taken even that which he hath. 

But I viewed it again. There was plenty of time, 
advancing upon MacWhirter two-and-a-half miles 
an hour, to contemplate it in every aspect. 

Here, Pacha, we shall be put to proof. Let us 
hail this fortunate opportunity of discovering if we 
be heroes or not. How should we ever ascertain in 
New York or Boston ? This day shall teach us a 
noble pride or a wise humility. Here we are tried as 
men, not as citizens. I have no doubt you will this 
day ascertain " how it seems" to shoot a man. 

The time came to fall into line. We sent to in- 
form our ally that we should not fail hiiu in this 
perilous juncture. He insisted upon preceding the 
two caravans upon his white mare, and called for 



AEMA VIRUMQUE CANO. 



Ill 



his gun, which he brandished in a manner of no 
hopeful auspice for the Howadji. 

The rest of us were distributed at fair distances 
through the line. I looked with curiosity at the 
commander, to see him extricating swords from 
scabbards and leather cases, and p,utting himself into 
an impregnable state of defence. But no muscle or 
weapon moved. Golden Sleeve evidently relied 
upon the moral force of his arsenal. Taking the 
hint, I brought my two pocket pistols to the front, 
and then remembered that my box of caps was in 
the commander's keeping, and my bullets at the 
bottom of the portmanteau. But I bated no jot of 
heart; for I remembered Hannibal at Thrasimene 
and Napoleon everywhere. 

I stole a glance at Khadra. She was looking from 
her palanquin^ her eyes dreamily roving along the 
horizon, and by a sudden flash that lightened 
through them I knew the cloud of dust was rising, 
and that the foe were riding up. 

When, then, I turned and saw the seven Arabs 
with spears and matchlocks coming slowly toward 
us, my first emotion was of surprise that they made 
no furious onset. In fact they had no horses. But 
our peers" appeared in the shape of seven exces- 
sively ill-favored and habited Arabs, each bearing a 
long-barrelled matchlock and a spear, with sundry 



. 112 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



knives and daggers stuck in belts around their 
waists. They had more the aspect of stealthy pi- 
rates than of gallant Bedoueen. 

They came slowly on, and we slowly proceeded. 
The old Armenian deigned no glance at the foe. 
We took our cue from him, I merely turning to look 
into Khadra's eyes, and assure her by my own that 
I bore her name upon my imaginary shield, her 
image in my heart. 

Nearer and nearer came the Arabs, until I saw 
that they were within gunshot, and that the battle, 
before which Troy paled, might at any moment 
begin. I had no faith in the skill of the Arabs as 
marksmen, but a discharge of their weapons, while 
several would probably explode and damage their own 
party, would also take effect upon some of our 
camels, and create great confusion. - Why should 
not MacWhirter be the victim, and fall with me, in- 
gloriously burying me under him ? or why, alarmed 
at the aspect of affairs, should he not betake himself, 
with me upon his back, into the remote desert ? I 
felt the disadvantage of giving battle from a beast 
who offered so fair a mark to the enemy, and whose 
motions you could not control. 

The warni silence of the day, our sluggish pro- 
gress, the slow advance of the Bedoueen, and the con- 
stant expectation of something, became insupportable^ 



AEMA VIRUMQUE CANO. 



113 



As descendents of the crusaders — upon the most 
general principles, ought we not to blaze away at 
these ill-favored Saracens ? I handled my pie-knife 
in a sanguinary mood. I battered MacWhirter's 
neck. I saw Richard Coeur de Lion smiling scorn- 
fully at me through six centuries. But I fairly 
trembled when I figured Perkyn Pastor wooed by a 
cluster of rose-red lips to tell that dreadful story of 
the Bedoueen who beseiged him in a tomb at Petra. 
^Stiing by the thought, I resolved, for my own 
part, to let fly something at the enemy. My pistols 
were useless, for I had no ammunition. The pie- 
knife best suited the hand-to-hand struggle which 
I savagely anticipated. My cane was too light. I 
thought for a moment of the umbrella, but the scoff- 
ing of the Lion-heart became audible. Then I hap- 
pily remembered the water-jug, earthen and heavy 
with water, and with a slim neck to sling it by. 
Providence clearly pointed to the water-jug, and 
knowing that he would have small chance of doing 
it, I conTmended to his Prophet the soul of whatever 
scoundrelly Arab I should sacrifice, and grasped my 
weapon. — 

At the same instant the old Armenian reined up 
his white mare. The camels stopped. The hour 
had come. We were having " an adventure." 

^If this work were publishing in monthly parts, 



114 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



I should infallibly pause here, and enjoy for four 
weeks the fame of a man who has had experiences. 

The glowing imagination of my rose-lipped reader 
(happy the Howadji, if such there be !) should sound 
the alarm and retreat; should behold, and with sym- 
pathy, the furious attack — the armed descent from El 
Shiraz and MacWhirter ; the commander's arsenal in 
full play, — each separate weapon drinking blood ; 
should see the pie-knife reeking with Arabian gore — 
the feats of valor that illustrated the defense M 
Khadra, her drooping figure clasped and sustained 
by one arm of either Howadji, while the other lev- 
elled rank upon rank of the foe, and supplied more 
heroic romances for the future poets of the Be- 
doueen ; should behold the venerable hairs dragged 
in the dust — those dreamy eyes of Khadra shedding 
orphan tears in the young moonlight, and the silence 
of evening and of victory closing over the piles of 
" Moslem slain — " 

Kose-lipped reader, believe it so, nor allow Per- 
kyn Pastor an undivided glory. 

The hour had come. I watched the old Arme- 
nian, who quietly turned the mare and rode up, gua 
in hand, to the Arabs. 

*' strike for your altars and your fires," 

shouted I from the summit of MacWhirter. 



AitMA VIEUMQUE CANO. 



115 



But the old gentleman was actually parleying 
with the foe, was palpably taking snufF — a Napo- 
leonic trait — upon the eve of battle. The conversa- 
tion was held in a low tone, and without any vio- 
lent demonstrations. There was even laughter; 
and when the commander, who had been listening 
from a proper distance, came up shaking and rat- 
tling, and more heroic than ever, I felt a melancholy 
reaction, and knew that all was over. 

The disputed camel was unloaded, and, after the 
Bedoueen had assisted in placing his load upon an- 
other beast, they graciously exchanged salaams 
with the Armenian Nestor, and with Mohammed, 
who wore the happy air of a victor, and slowly re- 
treated, leading the camel with them. 

Rose-lipped reader — but what could I do ? No- 
thing was said. What could be said ? Had we 
not "lost the race we never ran?" Could I ever 
stand again at the tomb of Richard ? Could I ever 
again look Perkyn Pastor in the face ? 

We plodded on. But I stole another glance at 
Khadra. In the sunset her dreamy eyes still 
roamed the horizon, and their soft light overflowed 
me with forgetfulness and dreams. 



XVII. 



aUARANTINE. 

A GAY cavalier dashed toward us. It was a cool, 
bright day. Khadra was chatting briskly, and her 
camel-driver sang more sadly than ever. 

Our gay escort caracolled around us as we ad- 
vanced, chasing young and old from our path, and 
the people stared at us through the cracks of their 
doors, as if death, on his horse, with a pale proces- 
sion of sorrows, were passing by, and not immortal 
young Howadji, and the beautiful Khadra. Look- 
ing at her and at them, Syria vanished, and I was 
attendant upon superb Godiva, riding through 
hushed Coventry. 

Presently, from among green trees, a vast wall 
rose against the sky. The sight kindled our gay 
cavalier, who plunged his spurs more deeply into 
his horse, and danced around us with greater delight. 
At the same moment he pointed eagerly at the wall, 
shining in the sun, and expressed his satisfaction in 
excited Arabic. 



QUARANTINE 



117 



This is the dragoman of some pacha," I said to 
myself, reflectively, " who inhabits yonder spacious 
castle, and who bids us partake of his magnificent 
bounties." 

"Certainly," I said aloud to the commander, 
" tell him we will avail ourselves of the pacha's 
gracious hospitality." 

" Sir," returned Grolden Sleeve. 

" What is the function of this individual ?" I con- 
tinued, in the Ercles vein ; for the castle and atten- 
tion seemed to be of that character. 

*' He is the quarantine guard," thunder clapped 
the commander. 

As Howadji journeying from Cairo, we were, ex- 
^officio, infected with every mortal disease, and hence 
the great yellow wall before us. It was the prison 
of the quarantine, which is the only method of 
Christian martyrdom at present legalized by the 
Prophet's vicar. 

It includes the most loathsome incarceration — 
separation from all but those victims who chance 
to be of your own party — the constant attendance 
of a guardiano,'" who, with a long pole, shoves 
away from you every one who would wish to shake 
you by the hand, so that you shall meet your friend 
or brother, with whom you parted years ago in your 
native land, and who comes full of all happy or 



lis THE HOWADJI IX SYEIA. 

mournful tidings out of the bosom of your family, 
but who must shout at you from a distance ; and, 
although living within the same wall with you for 
days, never touch the hem of your garment. The 
rack of fleas, the sting of every kind of vermin, the 
periodical suffocation by assafetida, are only the 
garnishing horrors of this martyrdom. You lose by 
it six or eight weeks of your five oriental months. 
It is the true plague. 

I knew all that. But I had not as yet practically 
experienced a quarantine. I was the child who has 
not yet burnt his finger, and I wanted to thrust it 
in. I really did wish to try if the quarantine were 
so very bad ; and I rode up to the portal with a 
good grace, and passed into the court with the air. 
of a man who arrives to taste the magnificent hospi- 
talities of the pacha. 

It was a huge square court, with a clumsy well 
in the centre. The ground was hard and gravelly, 
and all around the sides were rough, plastered 
walls, tauntingly high, and glaring in the sun. A 
few squalid, miserable figures stood about the court, 
vacantly staring at us as we entered ; each of them 
in charge of a guardiano, with a long pole, which 
was occasionally levelled to fence them off from 
each other. Melancholy piles of luggage lay scat- 
tered about the court, which presented no festal 



Q UAKANTINE. 



119 



appearance at all, and satisfied all curiosity in a 
moment, and in the most emphatic manner. 

The long side of the court, opposite the entrance, 
was formed by a range of buildings of the same 
rough plaster, and one story in height. This range 
was pierced at regular intervals by small, square, 
cell-like doors, at whose sides were windows in the 
strictest architectural harmony with the building. 

" Those," mused I upon the top of Mac Whir ter, 
" those recesses are the obsolete potato-bins of the 
pacha, whose guests we are." 

This was the sum of the prospect. The glaring, 
rough-plastered and gravel-floored court, with the 
potato-bins opening into it — the well — the figures — 
the luggage — and overhead, the cloudless blue noon 
of Syria. Grace and beauty had clearly perished 
from the world. One green leaf had been nature, 
and art, and religion, in that rigid desolation. I 
stared in blank dismay from MacWhirter, not anxi- 
ous to dismount, confessing, with groans of soul, 
that my fingers were already burned to my ex- 
tremest satisfaction. 

But we did dismount, and increased the company 
of miserable figures standing hopelessly in the 
court. A guardiano smilingly advanced with his 
long pole, and cheerfully commenced " fending off" 
the supernumeraries of the establishment who clus- 



120 



THE HOWADJI IN SYKIA. 



tered around us. The pack-camels were unloaded. 
They were all led out of the court. Even Mac- 
Whirter turned his back upon me and went, sniff- 
ing and pompous, out into the beautiful landscape. 
The Pacha — not the illusive host — but our Pacha, 
stood, wrapped in his huge capote, nursing Achil- 
lean wrath. 

And not far removed, half sitting upon bales and 
boxes, the beautiful Khadra looked tranquilly upon 
the scene. 

The cheerful guardiano suddenly thrust his pole 
at the Howadji, and beckoned us to follow him. 
He led us to the door of one of the potato-bins, 
and indicated that we were at liberty to begin 
housekeeping in it. We looked in, mechanically, 
at the door, and recoiled. 

It was a square, gray-plastered hole, with an un- 
even earthen floor. There was not so much as a 
wooden peg upon the walls. But a dampness, as 
of vaults, and in that dampness the vague sense of 
horrible disease and death, breathed upon us as we 
surveyed it. 

The gtiardiano, slyly watching for some unwary 
straggler whom he might punch with his long 
stick, remained close beside us, until the Achillean 
Pacha moved suddenly aside, and very nearly de- 
stroyed the official's centre of gravity. We sum- 



Q UARANTINE. 



121 



nioned the commander and told him that we would 
camp in the court. He shrugged bodeful shoulders, 
but stepped up to the guardiano and proposed that 
arrangement. It was not permitted by the regula- 
tions. 

— " But we shall die in that hole." 

Golden Sleeve only shrugged impotently. But 
the guardiano smiled cheerfully, with an apparent 
conviction that we should finally come to it, as very 
many of our predecessors and betters had done. He 
was a cheerful Muslim that guardiano, and did his 
business graciously, like the younger hangman in 
Quentin Durward. He leaned against the wall in 
the sun, and awaited our determination with the 
greatest serenity. It was simpl}^ his function to 
keep the world away from us for a certain time, 
with his long pole. If we thought fit to remain 
dismally standing in the court, during that time, it 
was equally agreeable to him, and did not at all 
embarrass his duties. So he genially stood in the 
sun, and studied our appearance and costume. 

While we were still undecided, two gentlemen 
emerged from a neighboring bin, were instantly 
joined by another Long Stick in waiting, and com- 
menced a vigorous promenade. They wore that 
hybrid costume, half English and half oriental, 

which John Bull affects in the East. We watched 
r 



122 



THE HOWADJI IN SYKTA. 



them with interest ; for they had clearly been broken 
in to the quarantine-life, for several days. 

They marched to one end of the court, making 
Long Stick step more rapidly than the Muslim 
wont, and then wheeling, returned briskly to the 
other end, while Long Stick made frequent onsets 
with his pole upon some incautious straggler. Ex- 
cept for the oriental strain in their dress — the body 
garment, which was neither coat nor kaftan, yet 
leaned to the latter without losing the former — the 
compromising bulge of the trowsers, terminating in 
red slippers with upturned toes — the bright sash 
folded around an indubitable waistcoat from Re- 
gent-street, and the Rubens hat cinctured with 
heavy folds of linen ; except for this eclectic cos- 
tume, the gentlemen might have been taking their 
" constitutional" in a run about the Park, or on 
the banks of Isis or Cam, and not upon the edge 
of the Syrian desert, in scriptural Gaza. 

While the Howadji watched this animated pro- 
menade, and wondered what Sartorian Teufels- 
drockh would have thought of the clothes those 
gentlemen wore, I heard a sound of low laughter 
over my head, mingled with a greeting — "Good 
morning, Wind, taking your constitutional ? Well, 
there's truth in the clothes philosophy after all, 
only you should wear a triple crown on your shovel 



QUARANTINE. 



123 



hat, and a scarlet petticoat to that waistcoat. The 
symbol would be more faithful." 

And the words died away into the same low 
laughter, which the promenaders could not hear. 

I looked up, and discovered that at each end of 
the range of potato-bins there was a small upper 
room, and from one of them Leisurlie was looking 
out and hailing his friends below. I scanned them 
more closely, and from the bewildering mixture of 
hat and turban, I extricated the features of Wind 
and Shower ! 

In my surprise, I expected to hear from some 
other window in, the air worthy Mr. Spenlow, say- 
ing cheerfully, " There you are again." He did not 
say so, but there we were : Leisurlie and our Pu- 
seyite contemporaries of the Nile, who spread their 
vast blue pennant so gallantly at Asyoot, and the 
Pacha and I, all housed for the nonce in the Gaza 
bins. 

We exchanged greetings, while the guardiani 
stood ready for action with their staves. On such 
terms, conversation was naturally not very fluent, 
and it was time to consider what we would do. 

Looking in at the damp hole once more, we con- 
cluded to do precisely what Long Stick said we 
should do — namely to set up housekeeping in the 
bin. The carpets and portmanteaus were thrown 



124 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



in, the rest of the freight thrust after to promote an 
air of cheerfulness, and Mohammed erected his fur- 
nace before the door, and proceeded to cook the 
dinner. Fortunately it was possible to obtain fresh 
fruit from Gaza, and the commander, who was as 
good a cook as he was warrior, undertook to com- 
memorate the day by an original pudding. 

Ah ! Hadji Hamed, long cook of the Ibis, in 
whose destiny a desert journey with these Howadji 
was not included, your image returned in that 
dreary quarantine, fragrant and cloud-wreathed 
with the fumes of kara liooseh and of yakhnee, 
Hadji Hamed, it is as impossible to speak of the 
commander's commemorative pudding as it was to 
eat it. 

Quarantine is not lovely. On shipboard it is 
more tolerable, or in any place, however miserable, 
whence your eye and soul may refresh themselves 
with the vision of earth or water. 

But in a glaring square court, with no green thing 
and no gay thing, and no pleasant motion to greet 
the eye : with the consciousness of the loathsome 
diseases that have raged in the very bin which incloses 
you, and the conviction that, if excited imagination 
should affect your health, longer and more torturing 
imprisonment and mortal disease, nursed by a cheer- 
ful Long Stick in waiting, and attended by an idiot 



QUAKANTINE. 



125 



of an Italian medico, who looks at you from a dis- 
tance, through assafetida smoke, would be your 
portion until the good angel death removed you, — 
under these circumstances the quarantine is an ex- 
quisite torture, and is a refinement of cruelty well 
worthy the attention of the anti-humane movement, 
which deplores model prisons. 

If Mr. Carlyle, as chairman of a committee of the 
anti-rosewater philanthropists, would proceed up- 
on a visit of examination to the quarantine of Graza, 
he would discover its paramount advantage of the 
combination of the greatest amount of practical, 
physical suffering with the smallest possibility of 
mental comfort. There is not the faintest odor of 
rose-water in any corner of the establishment, nor of 
the policy which dictates it. Had the journey beeii 
earlier performed by that gentleman, we should 
surely have had one other proposal for the solution 
of the Irish question, nam^ely : the erection of a 
quarantine upon the Gaza model, large enough to 
shovel all Ireland into, there " to digest itself at lei- 
sure." 

In the quarantine you would read if you could. 
But your books are as tasteless to your listless mind 
as cakes to a fevered palate. Carelessly you turn 
the pages, and rise to stroll in the court. The guar- 
diano steps nimbly up and flourishes his pole. You 



126 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



stalk idly about in the sun, veering toward any- 
chance figure standing in the court, that it may be 
thrust away by Long Stick. From some neighbor- 
ing bin, heaped with a mass of filthy Arabs, among 
whom some dervish or santon chances to be, you 
hear the wild howl of religious frenzy. Nor can you 
but shudder, dreading that much longer resistance 
would tune your witless voice to the same mea- 
sures. 

The commander, lying smoking among the pots 
and pans, has an introverted aspect, as if meditating 
some further atrocity in the shape of pudding. And 
what diabolical puddings might a man not make, 
who lived long in quarantine ! Wind and Shower 
pass in animated conversation, actually resigned, ap- 
parently, to this hiatus in life. You lurch toward 
them, and your Long Stick parries poles with theirs. 
The venerable Armenian, whose bin is next our own, 
is sleeping in the sun ; his grave white beard float- 
ing over his vesture — like a Roman Senator, you 
try to fancy, as if fancy had not long since perish- 
ed. 

"After all," you say, looking up and striving to 
cajole your intolerable ennui, " after all, that is the 
Syrian sky." 

In vain. Even the sky has turned against us. It 
IS brazen and monotonous. Not one soft cloud 



QUARANTINE. 



127 



wreathes and melts in its depths — not a bird flies 
singing through the blue. 

Only in the twilight your heart is a little comfort- 
ed. For it touches with soft splendor the rough 
plaster walls, melting them and fusing, until the 
compassionate moon rises behind the palms of Graza, 
which you cannot see, and, looking into the court of 
desolation, it builds in the dim air a marble palace 
of your prison. 

And in that moonlight sits Khadra at the door of 
her bin, singing Arabic ditties of love and sorrow. 



X 



JERUSALEM. 



"Now wul y telle the ryght way to Jerusalem." 

Sir John Mandeville. 

" I hope I shall do nobody wrong to speak what I think, and 
deserve not blame in imparting my mind. If it be not for thy ease, 
it may be for my own. So TuUy Cardan, and Boethius wrote de 
consol, as much to help themselves as others." 

Burton^s Anatomy. 



" Fiirchtet nichts, fromme Seelen. Keine prophanirende Scherze 
soUen euer Ohr verletzen." 

Henry Heine. 



I. 



PALM SUNDAY. 

Palm Sunday dawned over Palestine. It was a 
soft, bright morning, the last of our miserable im- 
prisonment. The day before. Wind and Shower 
had passed out of the great gate toward Jerusa- 
lem. Leisurlie was already gone, and soon after 
sunrise our camels entered the court to be loaded. 
The Howadji were incensed with assafetida, and 
adjudged clean. We should not imperil the health 
of Syria, and might go to Jerusalem. 

In the silence and ennui of those quarantine days, 
I had full time to remember the country in which 
we were, and the city to which we were going. 
Even here in Syria, here in Gaza, city which I htid 
vaguely figured to myself when, a child, I listened 
wondering to the story of Samson — even here the 
day came with the old Sabbath feeling, with that 
spirit of devotional stillness in the air which broods 
over our home Sundays, irksome by their sombre 
gravity to the boy, but remembered by the man 
with sweet sadness. 



134 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



The shadow of the cross suddenly fell athwart 
the gleam of the crescent. That Palm Sunday 
morning, the image which is the genius of Pales- 
tine, passed into my heart over reverential thoughts, 
and hushed hopes, as over strewn oliv§-branches 
and under palms, Christ entered Jerusalem. Be- 
hind and before — the desert and Damascus — lay 
the peculiar Orient. But we entered now upon a 
land consecrated by one life to universal and eter- 
nal interest. 

The day was warm, the air was still, and we 
paced stately out of the court into the lonely land- 
scape of Palestine, and turning toward Jerusalem, 
a myriad emotions whispered in that morning — 
" hosanna, hosanna !" 

At the gate, too, as if so fit a figure of our strictly 
oriental and poetic dreams must not mingle with 
our changing thoughts, the grave old Armenian and 
the beautiful Khadra went another way, and we 
should not meet again until we reached Jerusalem. 
As, upon his docile white mare, the venerable father 
piloted his little caravan away, I could still catch 
glimpses of the daughter looking curiously at us 
with her dreamy eyes, could still see the tall camel- 
driver walking slowly before her palanquin. 

It disappeared behind a hedge of cactus. For 
many days I did not see her again. But a solitary 



PALM SUNDAY. 



135 



palm upon a hillock still watched her going, and 
waved its boughs slowly toward me in melancholy 
farewell. 

I was consoled, however, by my release from 
prison, and no landscape was ever more beautiful 
than that which greeted my eyes this morning — 
doubly beautiful for the long desert journey, and 
the dreary quarantine. The little hill on which 
stands Gaza, waved in gentle and graceful undula- 
tions, bearing pomegranate, and orange, and date- 
trees, mimosas, and acacias, in its swell, and among 
them wound quiet lanes hedged by prickly pear 
and aloe. Grain waved softly from the distance, 
and out of the luxurious green, rose the minaret 
of Gaza, with groups of low houses clustering 
around it. 

Gaza was called the capital of Palestine, and in 
the ruins of white marble sometimes found there, it 
is hard to see anything else than the remains of the 
temple which Samson destroyed. 

Our road led by a cemetery of domed tombs. It 
was bare and desolate, like a ruined town. Then, 
passing along a spacious avenue, shaded with trees, 
we emerged upon a sea of grain. It was darkened 
at intervals by venerable, scraggy olives, and, rock- 
ing through it upon MacWhirter, I saw, beyond, a 
vast reach of bare, green land, partly grain, partly 



136 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRli. 



waste. Far away upon the eastern horizon — a 
misty blue rampart — stretched a range of hills, the 
mountains of Judea. Toward the west the green 
shrank away into low, melancholy sand-mounds, 
and so crept to the sea. 

The landscape was so fresh and fair, that I could 
have sung with the meadow-larks that darted, sing- 
ing, in the sun. But it was so lonely and mourn 
ful, that the song would have been too sad for a 
bird's singing. Far as I could see, before and 
around me, there was no town, no sign of vigorous 
life. It was akin to the sublime solitude of the 
Roman Campagna, if to its present desolation you 
add the nodding grain of its earlier cultivation. In 
outline, and extent, and hue, the hills were not 
unlike the Sabine or Volscian mountains, seen from 
Rome. 

But not the glittering fame of Roman story con- 
secrates the Campagna hills to the imagination, as 
the bleak Judea mountains are consecrated by a 
single life. The tranquil sweetness of the summer 
sky breathes over this landscape as does that gra- 
cious memory over the human heart. In Palestine 
that figure is forever present. On these infinite, 
solitary grain-tracts moves that form, as in Uhland's 
ballad the reapers see the image of their benignant 
pastor walking in the pleasant morning. It informs 



PALM SUNDAY. 



137 



the landscape with an inexpressible pathos. A man 
of sorrows, and broken-hearted. Keviled, perse- 
cuted, and martyred, now as then, and more than 
ever at Jerusalem. 

Passing this tract upon a grassy path, we crossed 
a belt of low hills, and descended into a series of 
basins, or dry lake-like reaches of arable land. 
There were infrequent groves of olives, whose sil- 
very, sere foliage, and rough, gnarled trunks, did 
not disturb the universal sadness by any gayety of 
form or feeling. All day the blue line of the Jude- 
an hills waved along the horizon, pointing the way 
to Jerusalem. Patches of grain sang in the low 
wind. Grain makes the landscape live, thrilling it 
with soft motion. Grass or turf is like lining, but 
grain like long silken hair. 

Presently we were in the midst of ploughing. 
Hundreds of acres of ploughed land stretched be- 
yond sight, and the general agricultural activity 
was strange to see. The plough was the same 
that Joseph and Mary saw when they fled along 
this land to Egypt, and the teams of camels and 
donkeys harnessed together, and the turbanned hus- 
bandmen in flowing garments, would have dismayed 
our most antiquated cattle-show. 

A warm wind blew with the waning day, and 
the sun drifted westward in a vaporous air. The 



138 THE HOWADJl IN SYRIA. 



camp was pitched upon one of the belts of low 
hills dividing the basins of land — and the sea, 
which we could discern from the tent, moaned 
vaguely, as the Judean mountains sank into sight. 



II. 



MEfiEMET ALL 

I DO not wonder that Mehemet Ali burned to 
be master of Syria, and struck so bravely for it. 

His career was necessarily but a brilliant bubble, 
and his success purely personal. That career was 
passed before the West fairly understood it. It was 
easier for the Jews to believe good from Nazareth 
than for us to credit genius in Egypt, and we should 
as soon have dreamed of old mummied Cheops 
throned upon the great pyramid and ruling the 
Pharaoh's realm anew, as of a modern king there, 
of kingliness unsurpassed in the century, except 
by Napoleon, working at every disadvantage, yet 
achieving incredible results. 

He was the son of a fisherman — made his way by 
military skill — recognized the inherent instability 
of the Mameluke government then absolute in 
Egypt, and which was only a witless tyranny, sure 
to fall before ambitious sense and skill. He pro- 
pitiated the Sublime Porte, whose Viceroy in Egypt 
was only a puppet of state, practically imprisoned 



140 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



by the Mamelukes in the citadel — and he gained 
brilliant victories in the Hedjaz, over the Wahabys, 
infidel and schismatic Muslim. 

In 1811, he accomplished the famous massacre of 
the Mamelukes in the court of the citadel, of which 
Horace Vernet has painted so ♦characteristic a pic- 
ture, and for which Mehemet Ali has been much 
execrated. 

But in Turkish politics, humanity is only a 
question of degree. With Mehemet Ali and the 
Mamelukes it was diamond cut diamond. They 
were a congregation of pestilent vapors, a nest of 
hoary-headed tyrants, whom it was a satisfaction to 
humanity and decency to smoke out and suffocate 
in any way. Mehemet Ali had, doubtless, little 
enough rose-water in his policy to satisfy the grim- 
mest Carlyle. The leader of sanguinary Albanians 
and imbruted Egyptians against wild Arab hordes 
was not likely to be of a delicate stomach. 

But he was clear-eyed and large-minded. He 
had the genius of a statesman rather than the 
shrewdness of a general, although as a soldier he 
was singularly brave and successful. Of all his 
acts the massacre of the Mamelukes was, perhaps, 
the least bloody, because, by crushing the few heads 
he had won the victory. A sudden and well-advised 
bloodshed is often sure to issue in a peace which 



MEHEMET ALI. 



141 



saves greater misery. It was Cr#mwell's rule and 
it was Napoleon's — it was also Mehemet Ali's, and 
the results usually proved its wisdom. 

Moreover, in the matter of this massacre, the 
balance of sympathy is restored by the fact that 
only a short time previous to the Mamelukes' ban- 
quet of death in the citadel, they had arranged 
Mehemet All's assassination upon his leaving Suez. 
By superior cunning he ascertained the details 
of this pleasant plan, and publicly ordered his 
departure for the following morning, but privately 
departed upon a swift-trotting dromedary in the 
evening. There was great consequent frustration 
of plan and confusion of soul among the Mamelukes, 
who had thought, in this ingenious manner, to cut 
the knot of difficulty, and they were only too glad 
to hurry with smooth faces to the Pacha's festival, 
too much in a hurry, indeed, to reflect upon his 
superior cunning and to be afraid of it. They lost 
the game. They were the diamond cut, and evi- 
dently deserve no melodious tear. 

Mehemet Ali thus sat as securely in his seat 
as a Turkish pacha can ever hope to sit. He as- 
sisted the Porte in the Greek troubles, perpetrating 
other massacres there ; and afterward, when Abdal- 
lah, Pacha of Acre, rebelled against " the Shadow," 
Mehemet Ali was sent to subdue him. He did 



142 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



SO, and then intetceded with the Porte for Abdal- 
lah's safety. 

Meanwhile, Mehemet Ali had ascertained his 
force, and was already sure of the genius to direct 
it. He had turned the streams of French and Eng- 
lish skill into the agriculture, manufactures, and 
military discipline of Egypt. His great aim for 
years had been to make Egypt independent — to 
revive the ancient richness of the Nile valley, and 
to take a place for Egypt among the markets of the 
world. He accomplished this so far, that, restoring 
to the plain of Thebes the indigo which was once 
famous there, he poured into the European market 
so much and so good indigo that the market was 
sensibly affected. His internal policy was wrong, 
but we cannot here consider it. 

Watching and waiting, in the midst of this inter- 
nal prosperity and foreign success and amazement, 
while Egyptian youth were thronging to the Pari- 
sian Universities, and the Parisian youth looked to 
Egypt as the career of fame and fortune — as the 
young Spaniards of a certain period looked to the 
diamond-dusted Americas — in the midst all the web 
Mehemet Ali sat nursing his ambition and biding 
his time. 

Across the intervening desert, Syria wooed him 
to take her for his slave. Who was there to make 



MEHEMET ALI. 



143 



him afraid ? Leaning on Lebanon, and laving her 
beautiful feet in the sea, she fascinated him with 
love. He should taste boundless sway. Eastward 
lay Bagdad and Persia, thrones of caliphs who 
once sat in his seat — why should not he sit in 
theirs ? Then with softer whispers she pointed to 
the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, and looked 
what she dared not speak. 

I do not wonder that he was enchanted. I do 
not wonder that he burned to be master of the 
superb slave that lay so lovely and fair in the sun, 
dreaming, as now we see her dream, under the vines 
and olives. His peer. Napoleon Bonaparte, against 
whom, in Egypt, his maiden sward was fleshed, 
whom he loved to name and to hear that they were 
born in the same year, had thus seen from Elba the 
gorgeous fata-morgana of European empire. How 
could Mehemet Ali reflect that sallying forth to 
grasp it, that peer had bitten the dust? That fate 
deterred the Pacha, as the experience of others 
always deters ourselves — as a blade of grass stays 
the wind. Shall not you and I, my reader, swim 
to our Heros, though a thousand Leanders never 
came to shore ? 

It was this very Syria through which we plod, 
this brilliant morning, that seduced Mehemet Ali. 

A land of glorious resources and without a popu- 



144 



THE HOWADJI IN SYKIA. 



lation. Here grow wheat, rye, barley, beans, and 
the cotton plant. Oats are rare ; but Palestine 
produces sesame and dourra, a kind of pulse like 
lentiles. Baalbec grows maize. Sugar and rice are 
not unknown at Beyrout. Lebanon is wreathed with 
vines. Indigo flourishes without cultivation on the 
banks of the Jordan. The Druses cultivate the 
white mulberry. Gaza has dates like those of Mec- 
ca, and pomegranates as fine as those of Algiers. 
Figs and bananas make the gardens of Antioch trop- 
ical. From Aleppo come pistachio-nuts. The al- 
mond, the olive, and the orange, thrive in the kind- 
ly air ; and Damascus revels in twenty kinds of 
apricot, v/ith all the best fruits of France. 

Many of the inhabitants pass us, and we can see 
what they are. They are repulsive in appearance, 
the dregs of refuse races. They look mean and 
treacherous, and would offer small resistance to 
determination and skill. Mehemet Ali had little 
fear of the Syrians. 

He could not resist the song of the syren ; and 
suddenly " the Eastern Question" agitated political 
Europe, and the diplomatic genius of the three 
greatest states — England, France, and Russia — was 
abruptly challenged by the alarming aspect of the 
Syrian .war, which threatened, with a leader despis- 
ing the political stagnation and military imbecility 



MEHEMET ALL 



145 



of the vast realm of " the Shadow of God on earth," 
to issue in a new empire. 

Mehemet Ali, having subdued Abdallah, Pacha 
of Acre, and saved his life and throne by interces- 
sion with the Porte, was surprised that Abdallah 
harbored all fugitives from Egypt. He observed 
that, following his own example, Abdallah was in- 
troducing the European discipline into his army, 
and was enticing into his service many young offi- 
cers who had been Europeanly instructed at his own 
expense. 

He expostulated with Abdallah, and appealed to 
the Porte. The Sublime Porte, like other political 
sublimities, hesitated, meditated — 

^' Then idly twirled his golden chain, 
And smiling, put the question bj." 

Mehemet Ali, with expectant eyes fixed upon 
Syria, sat silent, his hand trembling with eagerness, 
and ready to grasp the splendid prize. " The 
cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces " of a 
new oriental empire, rose, possible, in the light 
of hope. 

His army was carefully disciplined. The fame 
of its tried officers had been won upon the battle- 
fields of the empire. He had a fleet and all the re- 
sources of the latest military and marine science. 



146 THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



Over all, he had his son Ibrahim, already proved in 
Arabia and Greece, of a military genius peculiarly 
oriental, swift, and stern, rude in thought, but irre- 
sistible in action— the slave of his father's ambition, 
the iron right-hand of his v^rilL Internal prosperity 
and external prestige sealed Mehemet All's hope 
and determination. 

Against him was arrayed the worldly magnifi- 
cence of the Ottoman Porte. But the bannered 
Muslim lance that had thundered at the gates of 
Constantinople, and, entering, had planted itself 
upon the earliest Christian church; and flapped bar- 
baric defiance at civilization, was rusty and worm- 
eaten. Its crimson drapery fluttering, rent, upon 
an idle wind, would be inevitably shivered by the 
first rough blow of modern steel. 

And the great powers ? — 

Their action was, of course, doubtful. There was 
a chance of opposition, a probability of interference. 
But the grandeur of the stroke was its safety. From 
the universal chaos what new combinations might 
not be educed ? 

No sooner, therefore, had the Porte put the 
question by," than Mehemet Ali proceeded to 
answer it. The Egyptian army, headed by Ibrahim 
Pacha, advanced into Syria, and sat down before 
Acre. Cherishing the old grudge against Abdallah, 



MEHEMET A LI. 



147 



the Porte, now that a decided part had been taken, 
smiled faintly in approval. But the conduct of the 
war betrayed resources of ability and means which 
kindled terrible suspicions. The firman came from 
Stamboul, commanding the Pacha of Egypt to with- 
draw into his own province. He declined, and was 
declared a rebel. 

The bridge thus fell behind him, and only victory 
or death lay before. 

For six months Ibrahim Pacha lay before Acre, 
and, on the 27th of May, 1S32, he entered, by 
bloody assault, the city which Eichard Coeur de 
Lion and Philip Augustus had conquered before 
him, and from which Napoleon Bonaparte had re- 
tired foiled. The Syrian war began. 

The victorious army advanced, triumphing. The 
Syrian cities fell before it. The stream of conquest 
sw^ept northward, overflowing Damascus as it 
passed. The war was no longer a quarrel of two 
pachas, it w^as a question of life or death for the 
Turkish Em^pire. Vainly the Sultan's choicest 
generals struggled to stem the torrent. The proud 
walls along the Golden Horn trembled, lest their 
pride should be for the third time humbled, and this 
time, as the last, from the Asian shore. 

Northern and western Europe started amazed at 
the wonderful spectacle, listening across the hushed 



148 



THE HOWADJI IN SYKIA. 



Mediterranean to the clang of arms resounding in 
the effete East, as the appalled Romans heard the 
gusty roar of the battle of the Huns high over them, 
and invisible in the air. 

Surely, it v^as only the interference of the three 
powers that saved the Sultan's throne. That alone 
deprived us of the pageant of another oriental mili- 
tary romance, so rapid in inception, so entire in 
execution, that we should have better comprehend- 
ed those sudden, barbaric descents of the middle 
ages, which changed in a moment the political as- 
pect of the invaded land — in a moment, because the 
mighty appearance of life and power was but a 
mummy, which a blow would pulverize. 

One man, however strong and skillful, could not 
withstand the force of Europe, and Mehemet 
Ali retired, baffled, before the leaders of the polit- 
ical trinity that a few years before had dethroned 
Napoleon. 

The crisis of his life was passed, and unfavorably 
for his hopes and aims. At the age of sixty-five he 
relinquished the struggle with fate, and still one of 
the great men of a century, rich in great men, with 
no hope before him, and none behind — for since 
kingly genius is not hereditary, your divine riglit is 
a disastrous fiction — he sank slowly away into 
dotage. 



MEHEMET ALL 



149 



Before the end, however, both he and his son 
Ibrahim showed themselves to the Europeans who 
had watched with such astonished interest the cul 
mination and decay of their power. Ibrahim Pacha, 
with his fangs removed, shook his harmless rattle, 
for the last time in the world's hearing, at a dinner 
given him by young Englishmen, at the Reform 
Club in Pall Mall, and the wreck of Mehemet 
Ali, drivelling and dozing, took a hand at whist 
with young Americans in a hotel at Naples. 

Father and son returned to Egypt, and died there. 
A vast mosque of alabaster, commenced by Me- 
hemet Ali, and now finished, crowns Cairo, " the 
delight of the imagination." He wished to be 
buried there ; but he lies without the city walls, in 
that suburb of tombs, upon the cracked sides of one 
of which a Persian poet has written — " Each cre- 
vice of this ancient edifice is a half-opened mouth, 
that laughs at the fleeting pomp of royal abodes." 

All the winds that blow upon Cairo, laugh that 
mocking laughter, and in any thoughtful mood, as 
you listen to them and look over the city, you will 
mark the two alabaster minarets of Mehemet 
All's mosque, shafts of snow in the rich blue air, 
if you will, but yet pointing upward. 

Leaning on Lebanon, and laving her beautiful 
feet in the sea, the superb slave he burned to pos 



150 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



sess, still dreams in the sun. We look from the 
tent-door and see her sleeping, and the remem- 
brance of this last, momentary interest which dis- 
turbed the slumber, reminds us that ifc will one day 
be broken. So fair is the prize, that, knowing all 
others desire her as ardently, no single hand feels 
strong enough to grasp it, and the conflict of many 
ambitions secures her peace. 

Yet it is clear that nerve and skill could do what 
they have done, and so spare is the population, so 
imbecile the government, and so rich the soil, that 
a few thousand determined men could march unre- 
sisted through Syria, and possess the fair and fer- 
tile land. 



III. 



ADVANCING. 

This last throb of life, in the history of Syria, 
invades but for a musing moment the abiding inter* 
est of the land. Yet as MacWhirter lumbers slug- 
gishly along you cannot escape the mood of reverie 
through which the various forms of its fate will 
pass. 

The landscape is still of the same open, basin- 
like character, and of course lies toward the hills 
of Judea, which seem, this morning, like the misty 
Jura seen from Lake Leman. The nearer country 
swells and moves in vivid lines of green, and the 
fresh young leaves of the fig, upon the heavy limbs, 
are touched by the sun into golden flakes. The 
fences are hedges of prickly pear. The houses are 
of clay or stone, where it can be found, clean-look- 
ing for such, and warmer than the Egyptian houses. 
Scant garden-plots of vegetables dot the fields, and 
presently, over olive groves, we see the domed 
tombs of Ramleh. 

Here we strike the main road from Jaffa, on the 



152 



THE HOWADJl IN SYRIA. 



coast, to Jerusalem. It was a high-road of the 
Crusaders in old times, and of Christian pilgrims 
now. The sun has seen fairer sights upon it than 
the Howadji are likely to see ; but they recall one 
of its legends as they pass. 

According to the " Saga of Sigurd, the Crusader," 
King of Norway, when that fair-haired young mon- 
arch reached Jaffa, on a pilgrimage, in 1110, King 
Baldwin of Jerusalem apparently doubted whether, 
if there were such a region as Norway, its king 
could be a king genuinely royal. True, therefore, 
to the free masonry of royalty, he ordered costly 
draperies to be spread along the road, from the 
shore to the mountains, sa3^ing that if Sigurd rode 
over them he was doubtless used to such luxury at 
home, and would thereby approve himself a king. 
But if he avoided them, he, in turn, must be avoided 
as a shabby and suspicious potenta-te. 

The ship came to shore, and King Sigurd de- 
barking, mounted his horse and rode carelessly over 
the gorgeous cloths, as if his road all over the earth 
were so carpeted. And the good king Baldwin, 
charmed by the easy grace which certified his 
guest's habituation to regal luxury, received him 
"particularly well." 

More delightful than this, and in the true Arabian 
strain, is the story of Sigurd's entry into Constant!- 



ADVANCING. 



153 



nople, where he surpassed by his fabulous splendors 
all the extravagance of oriental genius. 

"Fabulous splendors of course they were," hum- 
med the inexorable Pacha, as, turning our backs 
upon Ramleh, and following in Sigurd's footsteps, 
I asked him if he did not suppose that, if Baldwin, 
king of Jerusalem, heard of our coming, he would 
carpet the rest of the Avay, and send us picked 
Arabians whereon to caracole over the carpet to 
his palace. 

I have no doubt that the crispness of his answer 
arose from the sudden contrast in his mind, of a 
carpeted road and an Arabian, with the stony path 
over which he was jogging, upon jerking old El 
Shiraz. For, although a very estimable animal, he 
did one morning tumble over sideways, just as the 
Pacha was gurgling him down. 

On which occasion, also, MacWhirter, seeing like 
Golden Sleeve's Pomegranate at another time, that 
he had fallen too far behind, relentlessly set for- 
ward on his soul-shaking trot, while I was sitting 
upon him sideways, surveying Syria through blue 
goggles, and holding the blue cotton umbrella over 
my head. The violent motion caused me instantly 
to slide, as the unhappy Golden Sleeve slid, not 
backward, indeed, but sideways, down MacWhir- 
ter's flanks. Clutching the stakes before and be- 
7* 



154: THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 

hind, I instantly sacrificed the blue umbrella, which 
was planted by the wind, like a huge mushroom, 
in the desert. 

Struggling, in alarm, to throw my right leg over 
the saddle and so balance myself, I expostulated with 
MacWhirter, and with spasmodic energy pulled the 
halter until I drew his head quite round, and saw 
his cold devilish eyes fronting my alarmed face. He 
enjoyed my apprehension too much, and I pulled 
his head back again, while I dangled at his side, 
conscious that if I slipped off he might betake 
himself into the desert, leaving me to foot it on to 
the caravan, from which I could not be perceived, 
and which advanced through the sand about as 
rapidly as I could walk. But I finally threw my 
leg to the other side and clung to him until he 
overtook the caravan and relaxed his speed and my 
suffering. 

Then it was that the Pacha, seeing me at the 
mercy of MacWhirter, naturally wished to show to 
the sun which had seen Sigurd's horsemanship, a 
little artistic camel management, and imperiously 
gurgled El Shiraz down. Bending, and rocking, 
and groaning, he began to kneel, but in the very 
act, he fell sidewaj^s, and the Pacha's leg escaped 
an ignominious doom only by a sudden spring. 

The chagrin of that moment was in his mind, I 



ADVANCING. 



155 



am sure, when he said curtly — "Fabulous splen- 
dors of course they are." 

The sun burned over the fertile valley. Don- 
keys, camels, and horses passed us upon the road, 
along whose sides active ploughing was going on. 
Of each traveller we met, we inquired if he came 
from El Khuds, Jerusalem— and more anxiously, if 
he had seen the venerable-bearded Armenian, who 
was to join the Jaffa road before arriving. Some 
said yes, and some said no, and some, with sublime 
disdain, passed silently. The mien of one of the 
latter kind, a grave and white-bearded old Turk, 
whose only emotion seemed to be incredulous sur- 
prise that he should be supposed to know any 
thing, reminded me of Koeppen's pleasant story. 

Koeppen was pursuing his archaeological investi- 
gations at Constantinople, and with nervous energy 
and earnestness was one day speculating upon the 
cannon ball which is built into the city walls, near 
one of the gates. He ran to and fro, and surveyed, 
and calculated, and surmised : then pondered, wrote 
and wondered — the very incarnation of antiquarian 
zeal — and at length espied a grave group of Muslim, 
seated, and tranquilly smoking in the shade. Like 
a fly upon the Sphynx, was the Professor's deter- 
mined activity before their profound repose. But 
suddenly rushing up to them — spectacles elevated, 



156 



THE HOVVADJI IN STRIA. 



book and pencil in hand — he addressed one of them 
in rapid Turkish, and inquired if he could tell any- 
thing about the spot. 

The sublime ignorance of the Turk recoiled at 
this imputation of knowledge. But without rising, 
he slowly removed the pipe from his mouth, and as 
if it were enough that Allah knew all, he said con- 
temptuously, 

" You Frank, I don't know what I had for break- 
fast."— 

Crossing a little ridge, we came nearer to the 
mountains. I fancied the eyes of Khadra lighting 
the dark gorges, and in the afternoon we entered a 
narrow valley of the hills of Judea. As we left the 
wide plain smiling in the sun, I heard a voice in 
my mind crying : "In those days came John the 
Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea." I 
looked upon the rough edges of that wilderness, 
and saw that they were low, and stony, and tree- 
less. The valley was planted with bright green 
grain, and in the lone water-courses among the 
stones, there was the blent beauty of a thousand 
wild flowers. 

But upon the steep mountain sides, rocks and 
sterile patches lay in grim desolation, consoled by 
infrequent shrub oaks and laurel ; and winding 
among them, deeper and farther into the hills, by 



ADVANCING. 



157 



lonely huts and ruined wells, and ragged olive- 
groves upon terraces, we found a spot less dreary 
than the most, and there the camp was pitched. 



IV. 



JERUSALEM OH ROME. 

Among- the mountains, the night air was as cold 
as that of our October. The camp lay at the en- 
trance of a narrow gorge, and the door of the tent 
commanded the valley behind us. 

Grolden Sleeve warned us, as he brought in the 
leathery tea, that this was the very place to antici- 
pate the onset of bad people,^ ^ and we, remember- 
ing the oriental proverb that " the worst Muslim are 
those of Mecca, and the worst Christians those of Je- 
rusalem," were ready to believe. But it was worth 
while to come to Jerusalem, were it only to prove 
that there could be " worse Christians" than those 
we had left behind. 

Nor was it more consoling when the commander 
entered later in the evening, to announce the arrival 
of a party of Muslim pilgrims ; for Jerusalem is holy 
to the sons of the Prophet as well as to us. I in- 
quired anxiously if they were making the pilgrim- 
age for the first time. For what say the astute 
Arabians? "If thy neighbor have made one pil- 



JEEUSALEM OR ROME. 



159 



grimage, distrust him. But if he have made two, 
make haste to leave thy house." 

These little ripples of incident died away upon the 
surface of the grave thoughts of that evening. Je- 
rusalem was then no fable or dream, but it lay 
beyond these mountains, and I should see it to- 
morrow. 

I wrapped myself in my capote, and sat smoking 
at the door of the tent. 

To any young man, or to any man in whose mind 
the glow of poetic feeling has not yet died into " the 
light of common day," the first view of a famous 
city is one of the memorable epochs of life. Even 
if you go directly from common-place New York to 
common-sense London, you will awake in, the night 
with a hushed feeling of awe at being in Shakespeare's 
city, and Milton's, and Cromwell's. More agree- 
able to your mood is the heavy moulding of the ban- 
quetting-room of Whitehall, than the crystal splen- 
dors of the palace in the park. Because over 
the former the dusk of historical distance is 
already stealing, removing it into the romantic and 
ideal realm. 

But more profound, because farther removed from 
the criticism of contemporary experience, is the inter- 
est of the Italian cities. They represent character- 
istic epochs of human history. Rome, Florence 



160 



THE HO WAD J I IN SYRIA. 



Venice, are not names merely, but ideas. They 
were the capitals of power, that, in various ways and 
degrees, ruled the world. 

Deeper still is the feeling that hallows the cities 
beyond Italy ; for beyond Italy are Athens and Je- 
rusalem. 

Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem — the physical, the 
intellectual, and the moral, do we long doubt which 
is the greatest ? 

The art of Greece is still supreme. The Empire 
of Rome has never been rivalled. But the spirit 
which has inspired art with a sentiment profounder 
than the Greek — the faith which has held sway 
subtler and more universal than the Roman — are 
they not, the spirit and the faith that make Jeru- 
salem, El Khuds or the holy, because they were 
best illustrated and taught by a life whose influence 
commenced there ? 

More cognate to ready sympathy, more appeal- 
ling to the sensuous imagination is the pomp of im- 
perial Rome, as with camp-fires burning from the 
Baltic to the Euxine, and from farthest Euphrates 
to the Pillars of Hercules, its gorgeous confusion of 
barbaric splendor and Grecian elegance, gleams 
athwart the past. 

Fascinated by that splendor, as by auroral fires 
streaming through the sky — recognizing the forais 



JEEUSALEM OK ROME. 



161 



of its law, its society, and its speech, inherent in his 
own — marking over all historic lands and submerg- 
edin African solitudes the foot-prints of its triumph- 
ant march, the young student revering in Rome 
the might of his own human genius, going out to 
possess the earth, reaches the gates of its metropolis 
with an ardor that merges in romance. 

Hence were hurled the thunderbolts that shook 
the world, and whose vibrations tremble yet. Hither 
come the poet, the philosopher, the statesman, the 
scholar, and in no city of the world was there ever 
assembled so much human genius in every kind, and 
in every time, as in Rome. 

Do you remember, Xtopher, when we came to 
Rome over the hushed desolation of the Campagna, 
that separates it from the rest of populous Italy, as 
the grim belt of the middle ages separates it in his- 
tory from modern times ? 

It was at sunset of a late October day. Trees had 
not waved to us nor birds sang since we left the 
park-like woods of Civita Castellana in the sultry, 
cloudy morning. Solitary shepherds in rough skins, 
knitting and croning melancholy songs, and the in- 
frequent curl of smoke from some tomb or volcanic 
cave inhabited by lonely men, were the only signs 
of life. Sad, low ranges of bare hills melting into 
the level distances, the confused undulation of 



162 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



brown turf, and the ghosts of distant mountains 
shrinking over the horizon, were all the features of 
the landscape. 

Yet, at times, even there, where it seemed that 
human genius had never coped with the mysterious 
desolation, the sudden ring of the horses' hoofs up- 
on solid pavement reminded us that the broad 
smooth stones were the Flaminian Way, one of the 
avenues of old Eome to the uttermost parts of the 
earth, and we sank away in reveries of the days 
when this barren landscape was a sea of grain sing- 
ing to the very gates of Rome. 

We were silent and thoughtful, that Campagna 
day. Day never to be forgotten, whose pensive sun 
can never set. The drowsy tinkle of the horses' 
bells, the monotonous minor of the vetturino's song 
— sound yet in memory, clearly and sadly as then, 
nor are drowned by the glorious bursts of many 
orchestras, nor by the passionate pathos of the Mise- 
rere, heard since that day. 

The afternoon was waning when we reached the 
edge of a little hill. Upon those dreams of Rome, 
rose suddenly Rome itself. It lay beyond us and be- 
low, silent and solemn. A group of domes and 
spires only, the rest was hidden by a hill. But as 
we proceeded, the city advanced into view, a long 
procession of architectural pomp — domes, and spires, 



JERUSALEM OE EOME. 



163 



and campaniles mingling in rich confusion, until, 
when all had passed before, the dome of St. Peter's 
closed the pageant like a monarch. In the last 
rays of the sun, the golden cross blazed in air. Lost 
in 'a chaos of memories, expectations, and dreams, we 
leaned from the carriage and gazed at Eome. 

So, as I smoked the pipe of meditation at the door 
of the tent, among the hills of Judea, waiting for 
the day which should lead me to Jerusalem, return- 
ed the vivid image of the moment and the feelings 
which led me to Rome. It was natural, for Rome 
and Jerusalem, as the two extremes, are the two 
most memorable cities of history. 

Yet, against the claims of its superb Italian rival, 
what has the Syrian city to show ? 

Not Solomon in all his glory; for Hadrian was more 
magnificent, if less wise. Nor the visible career of 
the Jews, whose empire was greatest under Solomon, 
but was then only a part of a later Roman province. 
Jerusalem does not rival Rome by the imperial 
pomp of its recollections, nor by its artistic achieve- 
ments ; for its only notable remains are part of the 
foundation of Solomon's Temple, while the most im- 
posing ruins of Syria are the Roman relics of Pal- 
myra and Baalbec. Nay, Rome came from Italy, 
and scattering the Jews, destroyed Jerusalem. 

To the myriads of men who throng whole centu- 



164 



THE HOWADJI IN SYUIA. 



ries of his tory — as thearmy of Xerxes the plains of 
Greece — headed by the eagle and asserting Kome, 
Jerusalem opposes a single figure, bearing a palm 
branch, and riding upon an ass into the golden gate 
of the city. That palm is the magic wand which 
shall wave the discordant world into harmony ; that 
golden gate is the symbol of the way which only 
he can enter who knows the magic of the palm. 
That single figure is the most eminent in history, 
the highest hope of art is to reveal his beauty — 
The sublimest strains of literature are the prophe- 
cies and records of his career — the struggle of so- 
ciety is to plant itself upon the truth he taught. 

In the vision of the past, as upon an infinite bat- 
tle-field, that single figure meets the might of Rome, 
and the skill of G-reece, and the wit of Egypt, and 
the flame of their glory is paled before his glance. 
He rode in at the golden gate, and was crucified 
between thieves. But it is the victim which conse- 
crates the city. In vain the heroism of the repub- 
lic and the purple splendor of the empire, would 
distract imagination and give a deeper charm to 
Rome. The cold auroral fires stream anew to the 
zenith, as we sit in the starlight at the tent door. 
But a planet burns through them brighter than 
they, and we no longer discuss which city we ap- 
proach with the profoundest interest. 



V. 



THE JOY OF THE WHOLE EARTH. 

Before the stars faded the tent was struck. In 
the briUiant dawn a party of Russian pilgrims rode 
by into the mountain gorge. Leaving MacWhirter 
to foUow with the caravan, I ran on alone, up the 
ravine and toward Jerusalem. 

The path climbed steeply by the side of a dry 
water-course, and led through a succession of 
mountain defiles. The air was exhilarating and 
birds sang. The wind was fresh and cool, and a 
thousand flowers were beautiful upon the barren 
hills. Sometimes the hills were terraced with rock, 
sometimes covered with loose stones, and the gray 
olive leaves twinkled in the rising sun. 

Many of the valleys were green and lovely. As 
in Italy, the little towns were built high upon the 
hillsides. But no sweets bells, as in Italy, rang 
through the morning air. I passed the ruins of two 
churches, dating probably from the Crusades. 
They were massive and picturesque. Hanging 
plants waved over them funereally in the bright 



166 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



air, and the gnarled old olives clustered about them 
in dumb sadness. 

But although I paused under the olives which had 
probably seen the builders of the churches and knew 
all the chances of their fate — they whispered nothing 
in my ear : only, as the morning breeze rustled iu 
their foliage, I seemed to hear the wild music of six 
centuries ago pealing faintly through the valley — at 
least it was the best expression the trees could give 
to their remembrance of it — and, in distant olive 
groves, shimmering in the sun, I saw the flashing 
spears and crests of the Crusaders' army. 

The mountain air was exhilarating. I ran eager- 
ly up the winding road, hoping that each turn 
would reveal Jerusalem ; but from each new height 
only the billowy panorama of hills unrolled around 
me, the surface fading from vivid green into the 
blue haze of (Jistance. 

Upon one of these paths I overtook a pilgrim. 
He was evidently a poor European, and was going 
patiently forward by the side of a small donkey, 
with a Muslim driver. The pilgrim carried a small 
pack upon a stick over his shoulder. I was passing 
him relentlessly, but his forlorn aspect made me 
pause, and he greeted me with a German good 
morning. 

It was a German tailor apprentice, who had come 



THE JOY OF THE WHOLE EARTH. 167 

down the Danube to Constantinople, and had thence 
sailed to Jaffa. Landing there he had hired a don- 
key, and was now coming to Jerusalem. And the 
reason he gave for the journey was that it was 
something besonders (odd) to go to Jerusalem. 

Truly the Crusaders, whose track he followed, 
had not suffered more upon the way. He had 
experienced every kind of small mishap, and he 
detailed his sufferings with all the gossipy querulous- 
ness of his countrymen. It had rained, and blown, 
and frozen, during the voyage from Constantinople, 
and he, as a deck passenger, had been the butt of 
the fierce elements. He thought it an outrage that, 
upon a German boat, only one person spoke Ger- 
man. That person was the cook, and he probably 
employed that tongue only to snub and buffet the 
poor pilgrim, for the latter, with an air of great dis- 
gust, said the cook was a dumjukopf (a block- 
head). 

But bad as was the sea- voyage, the land-journey 
was worse. Here nobody spoke German, and don- 
keys wouldn't go, and his ankle was swelled, and 
if Jerusalem was far away, he certainly could not 
reach it that day, although he had been going since 
one o'clock in the morning. 

Then, with a movement of despair, he made a 
rush at the donkey to get on. But the saddle-cloth 



168 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



fell off, and when it was arranged the donkey stood 
still, and absolutely declined to stir. 

"But you shouldn't pay a para," said I, "for 
such a beast as that." 

" Ja, mein Herr, (yes, sir), but I have paid," said 
he with a remorseful shrug. — 

The driver then made some suggestions in Arabic, 
doubtless of great practical value, but, unfortunate- 
ly, unintelligible. 

" Wie meinen Sie, was sagen Sie ? (what do you 
say?)" inquired the poor Teuton in bland despair. 

For they could not understand each other, and 
although the donkey would not go with the Ger- 
man, I observed that he moved nimbly enough with 
his master. 

But I could not tarry for the swelled ankle, and 
the slow donkey, and the slower Teuton. I walked 
with him for a half-hour, gave him what advice I 
could, comforting him by the assurance that, even 
at his rate of travel, he would reach Jerusalem 
by sunset, and then wished him good-day. 

— " Lehen Sie wohl (farewell)," said he, in a mel- 
ancholy tone, as I ran along. " ie&m Sie wohl: 
ach! mehi GoU,mei?i Gott 

The mountains rose more grandly, and I clam- 
bered up to broad, stony table-lands, whence the 
prospect \\ as bleak and sad. Vast ranges of bare 



thp: joy of the whole eaeth. 169 

hills receded to the horizon. "In those days came 
John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of 
Judea." 

I passed rapidly over this lofty, breezy table-land, 
with an inconceivable ardor of expectation. Often 
the pinnacles and shining points of rock upop a 
distant hillside, startled me with a doubt that I 
saw Jerusalem ; and, at every change in the land- 
scape, I paused and searched the mountainous deso- 
lation to distinguish the city. But the majestic 
play of morning vapors with the sun and the moun- 
tains, mocked the scrutiny of the longing traveller, 
and gradually inspired a statelier hope. 

As I paced more slowly along the hills, the words 
of the psalm suddenly rang through my mind, like 
a sublime organ-peal through a hushed cathedral : 
"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth 
is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city 
of the Great King — ." 

They passed ; but in their stead arose an imperial 
vision. 

Through the stupendous vista of rocky mountain- 
sides, I should behold the joy of the whole earth, 
lifted upon a lofty hill, flashing with the massive 
splendor of towers, and domes, and battlements, 
darkened by the solemn sadness of cypresses, and 
graceful with palms. The delicate outlines of hang- 



170 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



ing gardens, of marble terraces and balconies, and 
airy pavilions should cluster within. Triumphant 
bursts of music, "with trumpets, also, and shawms," 
and the chime of bells, harmonious with the soft ac- 
claim of friendly voices, should breathe and pulse 
from the magnificent metropolis, and preach, more 
winningly than John, in the wilderness of Judea. 

In the summer of that Syrian noon, this was the 
spectacle I thought to see, the majesty of its as- 
sociations manifested in the city. 

And, as I knew it nearer, I walked more slowly, 
dreaming that dream. The camels of Wind and 
Shower passed us returning from Jerusalem. Our 
caravan overtook me, and I went forward with the 
Pacha and the commander. 

The high land unrolled itself more broadly. The 
breezy morning died into silent noon. In the im- 
minent certainty, the eagerness of expectation was 
passed. Golden Sleeve preceded us a little dis- 
tance, and we followed silently. Suddenly he stop- 
ped, and, without turning or speaking, pointed 
with his finger toward the north. 

We reached his side and looked. There was a 
low line of wall, a minaret, a black dome, a few flat 
roofs, and, in the midst, a group of dark, slender 
cypresses, and olives, and palms. 

There lay Jerusalem, dead in the white ooon. 



THE JOY OF THE WHOLE EARTH. 171. 

The desolation of the wilderness moaned at her 
gates. There was no suburb of trees or houses. 
She lay upon a high hill, in the midst of hills barren 
as those we had passed. There were no sights or 
sounds of life. The light was colorless ; the air 
was still. Nature had swooned around the dead city. 
There was no sound in the air, but a wailing in my 
heart. " 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest 
the prophets, and killest those that are sent unto 
thee !" ' 



VI. 



0 JERUSALEM! 

Jerusalem stands upon the point of the long 
reach of table-land over which we had approached 
it, as upon a promontory. 

The ravines bet wen the city and the adjacent hills 
are the valleys of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom. The 
Mount of Olives is the highest of these adjacent 
hills, and commands Jerusalem. It is crowned by 
a convent, deserted now, and at its foot toward the 
city, on the shore of the brook Kedron, is the gar- 
den of Grethsemane — a small white-walled inclosure 
of old olives. 

There are no roads about the city. It is not ac- 
cessible for carriages, nor would its narrow streets 
permit them to pass. This profound silence char- 
acterizes all the eastern cities, in which wheels do 
not roar, nor steam shriek, and it invests them, by 
contrast, with a wonderful charm. The ways that 
lead to the gates of Jerusalem, are horse-paths, like 
dry water-courses. No dwelliugs cluster about the 



O JERUSALEM! 



173 



city, except the village of Siloam, a town of " had 
27eo2?/e," a group of gray stone houses on the steep 
side of the deepest part of the valley of Jehosha- 
phat. In that valley also is the tomb of Absalom — a 
clumsy structure, but one of the most conspicuous 
objects outside the walls — and the graves of the 
Jews covered with flat slabs, the great number of 
which crov/ded together, seems to pave parts of the 
valley. Pools and fountains are there also, sacred 
in all Christian memories. 

Toward the southeast from the city, the moun- 
tain lines are depressed, and the eye escapes to the 
dim vastness of the Moab Mountains, brooding over 
the Dead Sea. From the Mount of Olives you see 
the Dead Sea, dark and misty, and solemn, like 
Swiss lakes seen from mountains among mountains 
The hill-sides around the city are desolate. But in 
the valley-bottoms, on the soil that has washed from 
the hills, are olive groves, and in the largest and 
fairest stands a ruin of no great antiquity, but 
picturesque and graceful among the trees. This 
ruin and the mossy greenness and fresh foliage 
around the pool where " the waters of Siloam go 
softly" are the only objects which are romantic ra- 
ther than grave, in the melancholy landscape. 

These are the features of that bright and arid, 
but still melancholy, landscape. It lies hushed in 



174 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



awe and desolation ; and sad as itself are the feelings 
with which you regard it. 

One only figure is in your mind ; but remembering 
him and all his personal and traditional relations 
with the city, the single pure romance which flashes 
across the gravity of its history, returns to you as 
you gaze. Looking wistfully from the walls, you 
hear again, as under the olive-trees in the moun- 
tains, the barbaric clang of the Crusaders' army. 
Listen, and listen long. The finest strain you 
hear, is not the clash of arms or the peal 
of trumpets. The hush of this modern noon 
is filled with the murmurous sound of chanted 
psalms, and along the olive valleys, toward Mount 
Olivet, you see the slow procession of the Christian 
host, not with banners, but with crosses, to-day, 
pouring on in sacred pomp, singing hymns, and the 
hearts of Saracens within the walls are chilled by 
that strange battle-cry. 

Night and silence follow. Under the Syrian 
stars, this motley host, driven by fierce religious 
fury from the whole civilized world, kneels in its 
camp around Jerusalem, singing, and praising God. 
The holy sound dies while we listen, and the clash 
of arms arises, with the sun, upon the air. 

Jerusalem bleeds rivers of blood, that flow down 
the steep mountain sides, and a roar more terrible 



O JERUSALEM! 



175 



than the raging sea curdles the hot silence of noon. 
The clash of arms dies, with the sun, upon the air. 
No muezzin at twilight calls to prayer. But in the 
court of the Temple, ten thousand of his faith lie 
slain, and the advancing Crusaders ride to their 
horses' bellies in blood. It is the 15th of July, 
1099, and that evening Jerusalem is, for the first 
time, properly a Christian city. 

But once more, while we yet stand lost in these 
memories of the city, an odor, as of rose-water, 
sweetens the air. The Christian bells have ceased 
ringing suddenly. A long procession files from the 
gates, and the voice of the muezzin again vibrates 
through the city. It is Saladin, Sultan of the 
Saracens, who is purifying the mosque of Omar, 
who is melting the Christian bells, and dragging 
the Christian cross through the mire ; but who, re- 
ceiving the Christian prisoners with gracious cour- 
tesy, repays their sanguinary madness with oriental 
generosity, sending them away loaded with presents, 
and retaining in the city the military friars of St. 
John, to nurse the sick. 

Thus bold and defined, like its landscape, are your 
first emotions in Jerusalem. 

But while you stand and see the last pomp of its 
history pitching its phantom-camp around the city, 
the sun is setting. The bar-e landscape fades away 



176 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



Around you are domes and roofs, and beyond the 
walls you see the convent of the Mount of Olives. 
Thoughts more solemn than these romantic dreams 
throw their long shadows across your mind, even 
as the shadows of the minarets fall upon the silent 
city. Again you see the waving of palm-boughs, 
and a faint cry of hosanna trembles in the twilight. 
Again, that figure rides slowly in at the golden 
gate, and you hear the voice — " Daughter of Zion, 
behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sit- 
ting upon an ass." 



VII. 



"within the walls. 

¥/iTHiN the waHs, Jerusalem is among the most; 
picturesque of cities. It is very smaH. You can 
walk quite round it in less than an hour. There 
are only some seventeen thousand inhabitants, of 
whom nearly half are Jews. The material of the 
city is a cheerful stone, and so massively are the 
lofty, blind house-walls laid, that, in pacing the 
more solitary streets, you seem to be threading the 
mazes of a huge fortress. Often the houses extend 
over the street, which winds under them in dark 
archways ; and where there are no overhanging 
buildings, there are often supports of masonry 
thrown across from house to house. There are no 
windows upon the street, except a few picturesque, 
projecting lattices. 

Jerusalem is an utter ruin. The houses, so fair 
in seeming, are often all crumbled away upon the 
interior. The arches are shattered, and vines and 
flowers wave and bloom down all the vistas. The 

streets ar6 never straight for fifty rods ; but climb 

8* 



178 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



and wind with broken steps, and the bold buildings 
thrust out buttressed corners, graced with luxuriant 
growths, and arched with niches for statue and foun- 
tain. It is a mass of " beautiful bits," as artists 
say. And you will see no fairer sight in the world, 
than the groups of brilliantly-draped - orientals 
emerging into the sun, from the vine-fringed dark- 
ness of the arched ways. 

Follow them as they silently pass, accompanied 
by the slave who bears the chibouque. Follow, if 
it be noon, for soon you will hear the cry to prayer, 
and they are going to the mosque of Omar. 

There are minarets in Egypt so beautiful, that, 
when completed, the sultan ordered the right-hand 
of the architect to be struck off, that he might not 
repeat the work for any one else. They are, indeed, 
beautiful — yet if their grace cost but a hand, the 
beauty of this mosque were worth a head. 

The mosque of Omar occupies the site of Solo- 
mon's temple, about an eighth of the area of the 
whole city. It is the most beautiful object in Jeru- 
salem, and the most graceful building in the East. 
It is not massive nor magnificent ; but the dome, 
bulbous, like all oriental domes, is so aerial and ele- 
gant, that the eye lingers to see it float away or dis- 
solve in the ardent noon. 

The mosque of Omar is octagonal in form, and 



WITHIN THE WALLS. 



179 



built of bluish-white marble, over the sacred stone 
on which Jacob dreamed, and whence Mohammed 
ascended to heaven. It is one of the two temples of 
the Muslim faith, that of Mecca being the other. 
These temples are consecrated by the peculiar pre- 
sence of the Prophet, and are only accessible to 
true believers. Ordinary mosques are merely places 
of worship, and are accessible to unbelievers, sub- 
ject only to the stupid intolerance of the faithful. 

The beautiful building stands within a spacious 
inclosure of green lawn and arcades. Olive, orange, 
and cypress-trees, grow around the court, which, in 
good sooth, is '* a little heaven below," for the Mus- 
lim, who lie dreaming in the soft shade, from morn- 
ing to night. It is a foretaste of Paradise, in kind, 
excepting the houris. For, although the mosques 
are not forbidden to women, Mohammed said it 
would be better for them to have prayers read by 
eunuchs in their own apartments. 

In the picturesque gloom and brightness of the 
city, the mosque is a dream of heaven also, even to 
the unbelievers. 

There are many entrances, and, as you saunter 
under the dark archways of the streets, and look 
suddenly up a long dim arcade upon the side, you 
perceive, closing the vista, the sunny green of the 
mosque grounds, and feel the warm air stealing out- 



ISO 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



ward from its silence, and see the men, and women, 
and children praying under the trees. 

Or at sunset, groups of reverend Muslim pass 
down the narrow street, returning from prayer, 
looking like those Jewish doctors, who, in the old 
pictures, haunt the temple on this very site. 

It is an "amiable tabernacle" that you behold. 
You feel how kindly, how cognate to the affections 
. of piety, are the silence and freedom of this temple — 
its unaffected sobriety, the sunny spaces upon mar- 
ble terraces, and the rich gloom of orange darkness 
in which the young children play and the fountains 
sing, so that no place on earth is so lovely to those 
children, and so much desired. 

The sagacity of the Roman Church aimed at 
gratifying this instinctive requirement in religious 
associations, of an atmosphere of beauty, by its 
patronage of art. In place of this cypress darkness, 
it has the dimness of colored glass — ^for these blow- 
ing roses, it spreads muslin flowers upon its altars 
— for these bars of sunshine, it parades gold. Thus 
its churches have the aspect of eternal summer and 
twilight ; and thus flowers, the symbol of the per- 
fection of external nature, serve but as ornaments 
in the worship of the Creator, while the twilight 
hushes and subdues the mind into religious reverie. 

— You know not how long you thus stand, in 



WITHIN THE WALLS. 18.1 

pleasant thought, looking down the dim arcade, to 
that golden green. But if your steps obey your 
wish, and lead you toward the gate, some grisly 
and grim old negro steps athwart the sun, and 
brandishes his club about your head, heaping such 
scornful curses upon it, that you remember, with 
savage satisfaction, the Crusaders riding breast deep 
in Muslim gore, within those very precincts ; but, 
for the same reason, you do not much wonder at the 
surliness, and clubs, and curses, of the old negro. 

One day, as I stood looking in with great longing, 
and wondering whether the green, jasper door of 
Paradise, which is in the mosque, was indeed so 
beautiful as the poets tell those sitters in the 
sun, I wished that I had been Sir John Mandeville, 
Knight, or eke one of his " companye." For he 
says — 

" I came in there and in othere places where I 
wolde ; for I hadde Lettres of the Soudan, with his 
grete seel ; and commonly other men have but his 
Signett. In the whiche Lettres he commanded of 
his specyalle grace to all his Subgettes, to lete me 
• seen alle the places, and to informe me pleynly alle 
the mysteries of every place, and to condyte me 
fro Cytee to Cytee, zif it were nede. and buxomly to 
receyve me and my Companye." 

Whether it were pity for me, or pride iu the 



182 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



beauty of the temple which affected him, I know 
not, but the old Muslim graybeard who that day 
was the Cerberus of Paradise, did seem to look 
upon me as a poor, miserable peri, and he stroked his 
beard and shrugged his shoulders as if in struggle 
with his conscience whether to let me in. I looked 
very modest and humble, and altogether unworthy 
to enter the sacred precincts, hoping that Moham- 
med would work a miracle for me. 

But graybeard was inflexible. I had no grete 
seel," not even the " Signett of the Soudan," al- 
though, indeed, a firman from the sultan himself to 
enter the mosque would be regarded as an awful 
sacrilege. It is pleasant in Jerusalem to see human 
nature assert its imperiality, and to remember how 
individual Romanists question the conduct of the 
Pope, and individual Muslim that of the Command- 
er of the Faithfal, although both are theoretically 
regarded as God's Vicegerents. 

The beautiful mosque is the centre of picturesque 
and poetic interest in this city, and we were pleas- 
antly lodged not far from it. The door of our room 
opened upon a house-top : for now, as of old, in 
those soft eastern climates, you may live in the air 
upon the roof, and understand the force of the pro- 
phecy, that those upon the house-tops should not 
come down. 



WITHIN THE WALLS. 



183 



At night, the moonlight slept along the still, 
steep Via Dolorosa, which we saw from our win- 
dow, and the Mount of Olives rose dark against the 
east. At morning, the song of birds mingling with 
the muezzin's cry awakened us, and Jerusalem lay- 
so silent in the Syrian day that Marianna in the 
moated grange was not awakened to more slumber- 
ous stillness. 

We step into the streets half wondering if there 
is any population there. Blear-eyed, melancholy 
spectres swarm along the narrow ways, trailing 
filthy garments, but with intense scorn of the clean 
unbelievers. Lepers sit by the sunny walls, and 
your soul cries " unclean, unclean," while you 
loosen your purse-strings. Pilgrims of all kinds and 
faiths pass, wondering, and the trade of Jerusalem 
is in religious relics. In this metropolis of three 
religions, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, only the 
first and last have each a single external feature 
that is beautiful in remembrance — the mosque of 
Omar and the wailing at the stones of the Temple. 
The Christianity peculiar to Jerusalem is unmiti- 
gatedly repulsive. 

Our old friend, poet Harriet Martineau, speaks a* 
good deal of the pain of being hated, and she cer- 
tainly suffered unhandsome martyrdom in the mil- 
let-stalks thrown in her face, and the pouting and 



184 THE HOWADJl IN STRIA. 



spitting of small children. But, bating the grizzly 
old negro at the gate of Paradise, I never received 
any more unpleasant treatment than that sileni 
scorn V7hich I liked to see. It wsls doubly grateful 
in Jerusalem, because it expressed the feeling that 
few can escape for such Christians as you see there. 
When a Turk scorned me v^ith his eyes in passing 
I knev7 that he thought me a fellov7 of the Christ 
ians he v^as used to see, and as I had the same im 
patience in my heart when I passed them, I could 
not be angry that he lacked the discrimination to 
see that I was no ordinary eastern Christian, but a 
great American Mogul. 

The Muslim are peaceable enough ; for they are 
prodigious cowards. In 1832, these stout gates of 
Jerusalem opened to Ibrahim Pacha without a blow 
The children pout sometimes, and laugh at the 
Christian, may even throw a missile at him when 
they are safely behind a wall or door. But there is 
no hate in their hearts. The child smiles, and his 
eyes flash more brilliantly — although one da}^ that 
smiling will be scorn, and that flash the fire of hate 
Of course, cowards are always valiant against the 
weak, and a European woman is a very unpleasant 
phenomenon to the orientals. It is, therefore, not 
difiicult to believe that poet Harriet's tribulations 
were disagreeably real. 



WIIIIIN THE WALLS. 



185 



There are no rich men in Jerusalem. Every- 
one has the air of a citizen of ruins, and begs like a 
Belisarius. 

The oriental genius applied to begging is delight- 
ful. It has the same sententious gravity that marks 
it in every development, and the same poetic 
phrase. I was constantly sure that I saw the Mecca 
beggar of whom Burckhardt tells a characteristic 
story. 

Upon his first visit to Mecca, that traveller had 
employed a delyl, or guide, who was useful to him. 
But when he came again he had no use for him. 
He told him so. But the undaunted delyl came 
regularly to Burckhardt's dinner, and, after satisfying 
his present hunger, he produced a small basket 
which he ordered his host's slave to fill with bis- 
cuits, meat, vegetables, or fruit, which he carried 
away with him. Every three or four days he asked 
for money — saying loftily, " It is not you who give 
it ; it is God who sends it to me." 

Burckhardt soon wearied of this arrangement, 
and told the delyl, with great emphasis, that he 
could endure it no longer. 

In three days the delyl returned and begged a 
dollar. 

— God does not move me to give you anything," 
replied Burckhardt gravely, "if he judged it right 



186 



THE HOWADJI IN STEIA. 



he would soften my soul, and cause me to give you 
my whole purse." 

" Pull my beard," said the delyl, " if God does 
not send you ten times more hereafter than I beg at 
present." 

"Pull out every hair of mine," replied Burck- 
hardt, " if I give you one para until I am convinced 
that God will regard it as a meritorious act." 

Upon hearing which the delyl arose suddenly 
and walked away,' saying sublimely, " We fly for 
refuge to God, from the hearts of the proud, and the 
hands of the avaricious." 

Legless old Beppo, of the Spanish steps in Rome, 
was more cheerful, if less sublime, under disappoint- 
ment. If you refused the baioccho to his hat held 
toward you with a broad leer of confidence, he only 
smiled and said, '•^ Dunque domani, Signore (To-mor- 
row then, sir)." 



VIII. 



BETHLEHEM. 

The scenery of the Gospel story is vague until 
yo*u are in Palestine. Literature and art, forgetting 
climate and costume, set the events of that history 
in the landscape and atmosphere they know. All 
the religious pictures lack local truth. The temple 
in Kaphael's Spozalizio, is of the Roman architec- 
ture of his day. Paul Veronese's Suppers and Mar- 
riage Feasts are gorgeous chapters of Venetian life, 
and this — which is fair enough in Italian pictures, 
of which the essential character was so striking and 
beautiful — reaches the extremest absurdity in the 
Dutch sacred pictures, especially Teniers' St. Peter 
in Prison. It is fair enough, viewed by strict art, 
yet it is a loss to the pictures ; for this golden air, 
and picturesque costume, and lovely landscape, 
would have singularly deepened their effect. 

So we said as we rode over the bare hills to Beth- 
lehem, and paused at the well of which David long- 
ed to drink, but poured out the water unto the 
Lord. 



188 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Scant patches of grain and banks of wild flowers 
waved gaily to us as we mounted again, wondering 
if, haply, from this spot the wise men saw the star. 
The distant hill-sides were the fields of Boaz. The 
artistic eye of Leisurlie was struck with the sweeps 
of the mountain lines, whose sides uniting at the 
base, allowed no proper valleys, but only a narr<>w 
. water-course. The landscape was bare and sere 
with the melancholy olive, and, above a grove of 
figs and olives, rose upon a hill-top, the gray walls 
of Bethlehem. 

— " How beautiful," said Leisurlie, " would be 
this landscape in a picture of Ruth. How just in a 
religious picture, of which the chief interest is a 
woman, this olive mountain-side crowned with gray 
Bethlehem, in which a woman gave the world its 
best gift." 

He, too, we mused, as our eyes wandered over 
the lands of Boaz, but a gleaner in the fields of 
Time — yet whose harvests heap the future like a 
granary. 

Our way rolled through the billowy land, and we 
reached, at length, stern little Bethlehem, sitting, 
like a fortress, upon the mountain. 

A large church is its chief feature, and as you 
stand in its cold vastness, you would be in Italy, 
except for the swarthy faces, whose mysterious eyes 



BETHLEHEM. 



189 



follow your movements with grave curiosity. It is 
nothing but a large, cold church, garrisoned by a few 
friars, and seems discordant with that spot where 
nothing cold or bare should be. With very min- 
gled emotions you descend toward the grotto, di- 
rectly under the church, which makes Bethlehem 
famous. 

Winding with tapers down narrow steps, you 
emerge in the irregular excavations among the rock, 
and behold what they call the cell of St. Je- 
rome. But you do not linger. The Franciscan 
precedes you to the grotto of the Nativity, and 
there can be no reasonable doubt of its identity. 

He opens the door. A gleam of soft light, and a 
warm odor of incense stream outward. In that 
moment there is no more Franciscan, nor Italian 
church, nor taper. Your knees bend beneath you 
and your eyes close 

They open upon the grotto, gorgeous with silver 
and golden lamps, with vases and heavy tapestries, 
with marbles and ivories — dim with the smoke of 
incense, and thick with its breath. In the hush of 
sudden splendor it is the secret cave of Aladdin, and 
you have rubbed the precious lamp. 

Then your sense is seized in the voluptuous em- 
brace of the odors — of the brilliant flames, motion- 
less in the warm air — of the sheen of tapestry, and 



190 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



the flexile richness of the monks' robes at the altar, 
and your dazzled sense reels, an intoxicated Roman, 
through this Bethlehem grotto, which the luxurious 
Hadrian, after Rome had conquered Jerusalem, con- 
secrated to Adonis. 

But you see that it is low and irregular, that flie 
ceiling and walls are rock — that it is only a rough 
place of refuge if you strip away gold and tapestry. 
You see human figures stretched motionless upon 
the ground, kissing a small circle of jasper with silver 
rays — the shrine of all Christendom. The figures 
do not rise. They lie for long, long minutes speech- 
less — tears streaming from their eyes, and a sob 
vibrating at intervals through the grotto. As you 
gaze, the vision of the Bethlehem landscape returns 
to you — lonely, solemn, bare. The warm sweet air 
in which you stand is filled with strange music, 

— " Divinely warbled voice 

Answering the stringed noise." 

And its measures, like the waving of palms in the 
moonlight, breathe through your heart, " on earth 
peace, good- will to men." 

These are your mingled emotions in the grotto of 
Bethlehem. Romance and religion blend there 
more closely than at any other spot in the Holy 
Land. 



BETHLEHEM. 



191 



Climbing again into daylight, you look from the 
lofty windows of the refectory of the convent down 
upon the field of the shepherds. It is a steep 
mountain-side, dotted with olives. It is not glad 
and gracious, as if that music, like heavenly dew, 
kept it fresh forever. Sad is the landscapes and 
the day at Bethlehem. 

The glory of the sunset strikes across the moun- 
tains as you return. Silent and pensive, your talk is 
no more of pictures. You ride along the "fulle 
fayre waye, be pleynes and wodes fulle deletable," 
as good Sir John Mandeville found the road to 
Bethlehem. And if a solitary rose redden the sun- 
set in the fields, you remember his story of the maid 
who was martyred here, and as the fire began, she 
prayed, and the burning brands became red rose- 
trees, and the unburnt, white rose-trees, full, both, 
of blossoms and the first roses that ever bloomed. 



IX. 



LIFE IN DEATH. 

" Yes," said Leisurlie, I am convinced of the 
truth of the proverb. At least, v^hatever may be 
the fact of the Muslim at Mecca, there is no doubt 
that the Christians in Jerusalem are the v^orst of 
all Christians." 

" Heaven help us, then," commented the Pacha. 

It v^as in the v^arm twilight, and we had been 
riding all day outside of the city, down in the val- 
leys among the olive groves, delighting in the many 
points far below the walls, whence we looked up 
through nearer trees, vineyards, and fig groves, and 
saw the battlements of Jerusalem looming along 
the verge of the abyss. 

Grrand and endless material of picture is here 
Bartlett, in his picture of the Pool of Siloam, shows 
its form. But in all the Eastern illustrations of that 
accomplished artist, the desert and river are too 
much adapted to the meridian of the drawing-room 
The views represent the rude, and majestic, and 
desolate country, too much as the fancy of Laura 



LIFE IN DEATH. 



193 



Matilda figures it. The grand pathos of the Syrian 
landscape is not there, except to those in whose 
minds the forms of the pictures refresh the feeling 
of actual experience. 

Eeturning at sunset to the city, we passed Wind 
and Shower, accompanied by a half-dozen friars, 
sallying forth upon a walk toward the garden of 
Gethsemane. The good fathers were very snuffy, 
and shambled vigorously along. The gentlemen 
of eclectic costume and creed, glided sentimentally 
at their sides. 

And thus, we mused, the world over, sturdy 
superstition leads sentiment by the nose. 

But the sun had set while we climbed the hill, 
and the gates of Jerusalem were closed. 

We rode up to them and knocked. There came 
no response, and as the shadows deepened, the 
desolation of the stony hills became more desolate 
as we thought of passing the night in a tomb. 

"We must open a parley," said Leisurlie, and by 
way of prelude, we all thundered in unison upon 
the gate of St. Stephen. 

There came no reply. But over the city walls 
floated the cry of many muezzin, like melancholy 
music in the air. Al-la-hu-Ak-bar, Al-la-hu-AJc-har, 
sighed the wind along the valley of Jehoshaphat. 
Jerusalem was an enchanted city, in that moment 



194 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



a vast palace of Blue Beard, and we heard the 
moaning cry of the victims, heedless of their de- 
liverers thundering at the gate. 

— "Once more unto the breach, dear friends,' 
cried Leisurlie, " and this time keep it up until 
consequences of some kind ensue." 

Holding the horses, we battered the gates again, 
nor desisted, until we heard a voice within. The 
words we could not distinguish, but could easily 
imagine them to be in harmony with Blue Beard's 
Castle — "What ho! without there," in Turkish. 

" What ho I within there," cried the dramatic 
Leisurlie. 

We paused to hear the undoing of bars and bolts. 
But we did not hear them. Only a reiterated Turk- 
ish "What ho!" 

— "We must communicate with them," said the 
valiant Leisurlie, rather vaguely; for we were alone, 
and our supply of Arabic, Turkish, Syriac, or of and 
available tongue, hardly equalled the Italian of Kha- 
dra's mother. 

" Precisely," said the Pacha, who had sadly bruis- 
ed his knuckles in the onset, " we must communi- 
cate with them." 

"Oh, certainly, let's communicate," perorated L 

We paused. After a few moments, Leisurlie, as 
if rehearsing and composing a speech, began — 



LIFE IN DEATH. 



195 



Howadji Ingleez, (English travellers)." Then 
he paused, and the Pacha added — 
" BucJcsheesh, (Reward)." 

BuJcara, (To-morrow)," I struck in. 
" Tdib Jcateir, (Very good)," concluded Leisurlie; 
and we left the riddle to the reading of the guards 
inside. We meant to say with oriental brevity, 
''Admit the English gentlemen, and be well paid 
to-morrow." 

The negotiation was successful. The everlast- 
ing gates of Jerusalem lifted up their heads, and as 
we clattered over the pavement, through streets 
which, like those of Pompeii, are only stone ruts 
between elevated walks, we saw crowds of pil- 
grims thronging the streets, and remembered that 
it was Good Friday evening. 

There had been arrivals at the hotel. Nile 
friends from Cairo, by the Long Desert and Mount 
Sinai. The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Duck, and the 
dragoman-ridden Eschylus. Bat Verde Giovane 
was gone. He had already subdued Jerusalem, 
and was marching upon Damascus. 

In his place, however. Mercury, whimsical god 
of travel, presented Frende to our attention — the 
good Enghsh Quaker youth, who had burst out of 
England, celibacy, and the drab propriety of Qua- 
kerism, at one leap ; and now, in the most brilliant 



196 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



of blue body-coats, with brass buttons, flaming 
waistcoats, and other glories untold, was making 
his bridal tour in the East. 

Frende's plans of life were original. He had not 
travelled in England, had scarcely been to London, 
never upon the Continent ; but, like Verde, had 
shipped himself and bride directly from Southamp- 
ton to Alexandria. He did everything in the East, 
that everybody else did. You had but to hunt up 
some impossible place in the Guide-book, and sug- 
gest it to Frende — and he departed the next morn- 
ing to explore it. It struck me with surprise, that 
on such occasions, his alacrity was in the degree of 
his anticipation of damp, slimy places ; but I soon 
learned the reason. When the East was accom- 
plished, he proposed to visit and explore America, 
and then return to the strict privacy of English 
country life. 

I soon learned the reason why he visited damp 
places with ardor. He had what my French friend 
Guepe calls une sj)ecialite, and that was a passion for 
reptiles. It seemed to be only a sense of duty to 
that department of zoology which had brought him 
to the East. 

One day upon the Nile he had invited Verde 
Giovane, with whom he had a mysterious affinity, 
to visit his boat, and after dinner Frende assured 



LIFE IN DEATH. 



197 



him with trembling delight that he had found a 
new species of ichneumon, which, it seems, he pro- 
nounced as if spelled aitchneumon. 

Verde, whose mind had been confused by the 
Greek and other architectural names in Egypt, fan- 
cied it was a new kind of temple, and remember- 
ing one name of learned sound and meaning not 
to be surpassed, he asked with the anxiety of an 
antiquary — 

" Has it a propylon ?" 

"Aitchneumon," whispered Frende excitedly. 
Oh, yes, yes," replied Verde vaguely. 

"Would you like to see it?" demanded Frende, 
tartly, rather hurt at the lack of enthusiasm for 
ichneumons. 

Verde answered at random, for he had no clue 
to an idea in the matter ; and Frende, touched by 
his indifference, declined to show it, merely remark- 
ing that he " had him in a box." 

" Good heavens !" said Verde, and rapidly took 
leave. 

" Gunning," cried he to his companion, as he ran 
breathless into the cabin of his own boat, " Gun- 
ning, Frende has H. Newman in a box!" 

Nor was it until Gunning explored the mystery by 
questioning Frende, that he discovered there was no 
unhappy Mr. Newman boxed up on Frende's boat. 



198 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Frende had a fine career upon the desert. When 
he approached Mount Sinai, his dragoman shouted 
and raised his finger. Frende beckoned to him. 

" Achmet," said he, "ten piastres for the first 
scorpion from Sinai." 

Whenever he alighted, either for lunching or 
encamping, he drew out a large jar of specimens 
preserved in spirits, ran rapidly about the space for 
a long distance beyond the spot, and turning over 
all the promising stones he consigned to the jar 
whatever reptiles, worms, little snakes, scorpions, 
bugs, or beetles rewarded his search. When it was 
too late to find more, he ran back to the tent, drank 
his tea, read a chapter in the Bible, and went to bed. 
In the morning he devoted all the time of preparation 
for departure to the interests of science, and during 
the day's march his contemplation of the precious 
jar was only interrupted by searching glances over 
the desert to detect any signs of zoological promise 
in stones or shrubs. 

This evening, in Jerusalem, I was telling the 
story of our day's ride in the valleys to the younger 
Miss Duck, and dwelt somewhat elaborately and fer- 
vently upon the beauty of Siloam in the rich after- 
noon light, with Jerusalem towering above. I was 
even attempting some poetical reminiscences from 
Byron, Bishop Heber, and Tasso, when Frende, who 



LIFE IN DEATH. 



199 



had been attending very patiently, ventured to in- 
terrupt my romance and quotations, exclaiming, 

" Beautiful, my dear sir, truly beautiful ; I seem 
to see Siloam. Pray, did you anywhere on the 
damp wall observe a new species of the centipede ?" 

Leisurlie smiled. 

" For in our life alone does nature live", 

said he, as he took his candle. 



X. 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 

The mosque of Omar is the most beautiful ob- 
ject in Jerusalem, and the church of the Sepulchre 
is the most unpleasant. 

The solemnity of the landscape around the city, 
its silence and desolation, impress the mind strongly 
with the spiritualism of Christianity, and to a de- 
gree that almost reaches severity. You feel that 
not only the sanctity of the city, but the austei ity 
of the landscape, fostered the asceticism of the early 
hermits here. 

The image of Christ in your mind perpetually 
rebukes whatever is not lofty and sincere in your 
thoughts, and sternly requires reality of all feelmg 
exhibited in Jerusalem. In Rome, you can tolerate 
tinsel, because the history of the Faith there, and 
its ritual, are a kind of romance. But it is intoler- 
able in Jerusalem, where, in the presence of the 
same landscape and within the same walls, you 
have a profound personal feeling and reverence for 
Jesus. 



ON THE HOUSE-TOP. 



201 



As you meditate the features of his character, and 
the beauty of holiness penetrates your mind more 
deeply — as you recognize the directness of his 
teaching and the simplicity of his life — as you feel 
how constantly he appealed to the natural affections 
of the heart — you are lost in sorrow and dismay 
before the melancholy abuses of the institution 
which has aimed to perpetuate his spirit among 
men. 

Were the Scribes and Pharisees alone, you ask, 
guilty of giving stones for fish ? 

Turning the pages of ecclesiastical history — of 
that church which especially has hitherto represent- 
ed Christianity — or of the various sects whose dif- 
ferences so fiercely clash — does it seem to you that 
you contemplate the career of an institution with 
which Jesus promised to be, until the end of the 
world ? 

— Or glancing from books to life, and regarding 
the aspect of any community professing Christiani- 
ty — as Paris, London, or New York — would you 
notice eager selfishness as its characteristic, or for- 
bearance, forgiveness, and self-denial ? 

If now, Jesus were sitting where he once sat, upon 
the Mount of Olives, which we can yonder plainly 
discern in the full moonlight, and perceived the 
worship which we shall see this Good Friday even- 



202 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



ing— scarcely less idolatrous than that of wild Afri- 
cans to a Fetish — should we not hear his voice wail- 
ing again over the city — 

"Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that stonest 
the Prophets." 



IDOLATRY. 

" Thy silver is htecc-me dross, thy wine is mixed with water." 

The Eev. Dr. Duck declined to go to the church 
of the Holy Sepulchre, this Good Friday evening, 
to see the " Romish mummeries."" He had been 
attending evening prayer at the English chapel 
upon Mount Zion, and had been kneeling and pray- 
ing, " From pride, envy, malice, and all uncharita- 
bleness, Good Lord deliver us!" Between the 
courses at dinner, he blandly exposed the " absurd 
Romish traditions of the sacred spots in and around 
Jerusalem." 

Among other doubts, he had disputed the authen 
ticity of the tomb at Bethany, called the tomb of 
Lazarus. " I have been to-day to Bethany," said 
the Rev. Dr. Duck, " and I saw there the cave 
which the Romanists called the tomb of Lazarus. 
It is an excavation in the rock, and we descended 
several steps before we reached the spot where Laza- 
rus is said to have lain. But, my dear sir, how 



204 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



very absurd to suppose that this could have been 
the tomb mentioned in holy Scripture; for our 
Saviour is distinctly stated to have said — ' Lazarus, 
come forth.l Now would he have used that word if 
he had meant come up 

This reasoning sufficed* to tha Rev. Dr. Duck's 
mind to destroy the identity of the traditional reli- 
gious places. Decidedly he could not go to see the 
*' Romish mummeries." 

But as we passed into the court of the house, 
upon our way thither, we heard the Rev. Dr. Duck 
reading aloud to his family. And these were the 
words he read. 

" The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with him- 
self. God I thank thee that I am not as other men 
are, extortioners, unjust, adulterous, or even as this 
Publican : 

" And the Publican, standing afar off, would not 
lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote 
upon his breast, saying — God be merciful to me a 
sinner !" — 

The church of the Holy Sepulchre is possessed 
by the Latins, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, and Abys- 
sinians. The Greeks are the richest, and are undei 
the immediate protection of Russia, and they mo- 
nopolize all the best places in the church, except 
the sepulchre itself The exterior of the building 



IDOLATRY. 



205 



is Byzantine. The interior has no architectural 
pretension or beauty. The whole middle space is 
inclosed, forming a church within a church, and the 
in closure is the Greek chapel. In front of this is 
the small temple built around the sepulchre itself, 
and upon the sides of the Greek chapel are broad 
passages in which are shown several spots of tradi- 
tional interest — as that where the post of flagella- 
tion stood — which post you may see, and that 
where the clothing was divided. Finally, you 
ascend a steep staircase and reach a small upper 
chapel, which is Calvary, and a circular spot under 
the altar is the exact site of the cross. 

The interior of the church is bare and desolate. 
The scant and dirty hangings and trappings, the 
miserable pictures, the soiled artificial flowers, the 
entire dearth of grace and delicacy, are very mourn- 
ful. There is not a solemn spot in the building, 
but the tomb itself. A motley crowd is constantly 
swarming through the passages, and there is the 
perpetual scuffling of many feet and the hum of 
hushed voices. The finest figures are the Bedoueen 
from the desert, who stand in postures of natural 
grace and dignity, and who, with the flowing robes, 
and brilliant Mecca handkerchiefs wreathed around 
their heads, make the only picturesque and pleas- 
ing groups. 



206 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



The Greek pilgrims are the most numerous, and 
entirely surpass the Latin in the fervor of their de 
votions. I have never seen anything so abject as 
their conduct before the altar in the Calvary chapel. 
You can scarcely recognize them as men, so sunken 
do they look in degraded ignorance. Their genu- 
flexions are remarkable for their magical suppleness. 
They stand, rapidly repeating prayers before the 
altar, and then fall to their knees and upon their 
faces, touching their foreheads, and kissing the 
floor. Then up again, and dov^n, with incredible 
celerity. This continues sometimes for a half-hour 
and they then stroll away through the church, buy- 
ing crosses, beads, and mother-of-pearl shells made 
at Bethlehem. 

Directly under the dome of the church, is the 
sepulchre itself. It is inclosed in a small temple, 
divided into two parts, of which the first is an ante- 
room, and the other a small cabinet, in which is the 
marble tomb. The anteroom is hung with lamps, 
and a priest stands at the door, shufiling the crowds 
of worshippers to and fro, and taking snuff in the 
intervals. But he has great respect for persons ; 
for when we appeared, although he said that we 
were heretics, he hustled an unwashed company 
from the door, and greeting us as English, smil- 
ingly ushered us in. 



IDOLATEY. 



207 



The air of the outer room was warm and odor- 
ous with incense. The faithful were kneeling on 
the floor, weeping, kissing the pavement, and mut- 
tering prayers. From the interior room the pil- 
grims were coming out backward and with bent 
heads. They paid no attention to our Frank cos- 
tume, they were wrapt in emotion. 

We entered the interior cabinet, half of which is 
occupied by the tomb. It is covered with a marble 
slab, smooth 'with the myriad kisses of generations ; 
over it is a narrow marble shelf, along which are 
arranged artificial flowers. It is hung with golden 
lamps, a priest stands silent in the corner forever, 
and the warm air is faint with perpetual incense. 

Before the tomb was a figure which is among the 
saddest in my memory. It was an old man, a Bul- 
garian, deformed, and covered with scanty rags. 
His emotion had passed into idolatrous frenzy. 
Throwing himself back upon his knees, he con- 
templated the tomb with streaming eyes — then 
stretched his arms over it, and laid his face against 
the marble with idiotic delight. Seized by a deli- 
rium of devotion, he poured out a series of adjura- 
tions with inconceivable rapidity. He grasped 
frantically at the tomb — he touched his forehead 
to it — his words became a bubbling at the mouth — 
his head fell on one side, and he sank at full length, 



208 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



motionless, upon the floor. The priest presently- 
touched him. He stared wildly for a moment, then 
rising to his knees and clutching at the tomb, he 
shuffled out backward, still kneeling, still stretcHng 
out his hands, covering the threshold with passion- 
ate kisses and drenching it with tears. 

We withdrew from the sepulchre humiliated by 
that spectacle. It was not the ecstacy of piety — 
it was the frenzy of superstition. The spirit which 
had rent and torn the poor Bulgarian was the same 
that plunges crowds beneath the car of Juggernaut, 
and beats drums while children burn in the arms of 
Moloch. 

We turn away. The night advances, and the 
church rapidly fills. The brain is dizzy with the 
incessant genuflexions, crossings, and kissings, on 
every hand. Wearied and mortified, you long for 
one sight, one sound, that might suggest to you 
the grave serenity of Jesus — when suddenly the 
door communicating with the convent opens, and 
the procession enters. 

The superior of the convent, mitred, richly 
draped, and bearing a candle, is followed by all 
the monks. The pious pilgrims crushing toward 
the priests, seize lighted tapers and swell the train. 
It winds, a motley and strange multitude, through 
the dim passage by the Greek <3hapel. The scuf- 



IDOLATRY. 



209 



fling of hurrying feet ceases as they gain the pro- 
cession. The monotonous murmur of low voices 
dies away. The low responses of the friars end, 
and a sublime chant peals through the silence. 

The vast building is overflowed with music. 
The solemn chords swell along the church, their 
majesty and sincerity protesting against the tawdry 
idolatry of the place. Long unused to music, which 
is rarely heard in the East, the grandeur of this old 
Italian chant,' which first I heard in St. Peter's, is 
doubly grand. Proudly it asserts the greatness of 
God, and the dignity of man. Its superb harmonies 
scorn the superstition they are evoked to aid — for 
what thoughtful man can call the spectacle which 
we now behold, worship. This music of Allegri 
chanted by these monks, is as a spirit of heaven sub- 
ject to gnomes — as Ariel to Caliban. It comes at 
their bidding, yet in coming it does not serve them, 
but the ends of its own beauty and nature. Swept 
up, upon its soaring strains, we float away into the 
clearest vision, of that life of love and duty, and 
renew to it there, the oath of loyalty, which was 
well nigh lost in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

It melts — it fails — it dies into softer and more ex- 
quisite modulations. It wails around Calvary and 
the Sepulchre as once the winds of heaven may 
have wailed there — softly, more softly — shaming 



210 THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



its use by its sweetness, and wooing to the worship 
in spirit and in truth. 

The procession stopped at each of the stations, 
and the music, pausing, died in long, sweet rever- 
berations through the dark church. At each station 
a sermon was preached, and at each in a different 
language, that every pilgrim in the crowd might 
have a chance of understanding. Then the chorus 
swelled again, and with censers swinging incense, 
the crowd passed to the next station, making alto- 
gether seven pauses. 

When the procession went up to the Calvary 
chapel we awaited its return, and strolled about 
the church. — 

A lofty gallery surrounds that part of the church 
in which the Sepulchre stands. Part of this gallery 
is devoted to the Armenian women, and pausing 
under it I searched its brilliant groups for one face, 
as boys the matted blossoms of summer fields, for 
their choicest flower. 

I saw it. Through the azure clouds of incense 
looked Khadra's dreamy eyes, roving over the 
tumultuous wilderness of men below, as they had 
glanced over the desert. And like that fairest flower 
of summer fields was she arrayed. Not cardinal 
flowers in the dusk shadows of water-courses, gleam 
with more splendor than she through my memory 



IDOLATEYf 



211 



now. Eastern women dare, what the western do 
not dream. Even the pictured women of Titian, 
and Paul, and Giorgione, are pale before the com- 
plexions and costumes of the East ' 

Khadra's eyes, attracted, perhaps, by the Frank 
dress, rested at length upon my figure. I looked 
up at her, and her glance overflowed me with the 
warm solitude of the desert. There was no church, 
no throng, no preaching — but a boundless silence, 
and Khadra looking at me. A smile broke along 
her mouth. It was the dawn stealing over the 
moonlight of her glances. She was playing with a 
flower, and I approached so as to stand directly un- 
der the gallery. 

At that moment the sublime chorus pealed again 
from the chapel, and the procession began to de- 
scend. Then, whether startled by the sudden burst, 
or willing to acknowledge, in the sanctity of the 
church, and from her inviolable height, an ac- 
quaintance which could be no more than a dream, 
Khadra dropped the flower, and it fell into my 
hands. 

Meanwhile, a Turkish guard had entered to keep 
order during the final ceremonies. They pushed the 
pilgrims "backward with their guns, treating them 
with utter contempt. It was .a commentary upon 
the ceremonies that the fights of the Latin and 



212 THE HOrWADJI IN STRIA. 



Greek Christians in the church were, until recently, 
so sanguinary that Muslim were obliged to enter 
the tomb of Christ to preserve the peace among 
his followers. 

They were now holding a space clear about a 
marble slab, upon which the body of Jesus is said 
to have been washed, before his burial. Upon this, 
when room was made, a friar laid a lace-edged 
shroud and a small velvet pillow. The crowd 
pressed forward, but the Turks thrust it violently 
back; and the colonel, seeing that we were Howadji 
of a certain importance, beckoned us to the inner 
circle, and then, quietly turning his back upon the 
slab, continued, in that position, to smoke his chi- 
bouque during the remaining ceremonies. 

As the procession descended the steps from Cal- 
vary, I saw Wind and Shower holding candles, and 
weeping profusely. The crowd was very dense 
upon the stairs. There were several consular dig- 
nitaries, and some ladies, with the rest. All leaned 
toward the slab, in earnest and wondering attention. 
The tapers flared wildly over the wild faces thrust 
forward with eager curiosity. Only the Muslim 
and the monks who immediately surrounded the 
slab, were unconcerned. The true believers of one 
faith looked contemptuously upon those of the 
other, and smoked. Those of the other preserved a 



IDOLATRY. 



213 



stolid indifference, or scolded among themselves, 
and took snuff. 

The scene, which was hitherto only painful, be- 
came shocking when four monks brought forward a 
waxen image, four feet long — a ghastly idol, in an 
agonized posture, meant to represent Jesus after the 
crucifixion, and really resembling a cast of Casper 
Hauser just famishing — and laid it, lean, shrunken, 
and puny, upon the lace-edged shroud or sheet on 
the slab. 

The mitred superior then knelt and anointed it 
with oil, while Wind and Shower leaned more ear- 
nestly forward over the railing of the stairs, still 
holding the candles, still weeping ; while, in 
the deep distances of the church, the wailing 
music moaned, as if angels were grieving. The 
echoes died a^ay, and a friar preached an 
Italian sermon. It was artificial and cold. The 
Turkish colonel smoked ; the brethren yawned and 
snuffed ; a French lady quietly surveyed the figure 
through her lorgnette, precisely as I had seen her 
survey the hippopotamus at Cairo, and with the 
same kind of interest. 

That French lady with the lorgnette, and the 
English gentleman who had told me at dinner that 
there was too much common-sense abroad now-a- 
days for martyrdom, are remembered upon that 



214 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Good Friday in Jerusalem, not less than the poor 
Bulgarian in the tomb. 

It was after midnight when these things ended. ' 
With mingled feelings of wonder, humiliation, in- 
dignation, and sorrow, we turned from the church 
of the Holy Sepulchre ; and I know no place where 
you encounter such faint traces of the spirit of 
Christianity. 

The splendor of St. Peter's appeals to you irre- 
spective of what it represents. Pictures and archi- 
tectural grandeurs, and the romantic pomp of the 
processions, have an independent value. But it is 
not so with the gilt gewgaws of a poor chapel, al- 
though the genuine sentiment in the worshipper 
might make them endurable to him. And here in 
Jerusalem, in the very presence of the Sepulchre, 
and the profound reality of Chat's life, ignorant 
and repulsive monks, quarrelling and dozing, and 
shambling in dirty gowns about a bare and desolate 
building, which looks like a dilapidated old curiosity 
shop, carrying disgusting idols through a crowd ab- 
jectly superstitious — these things do not satisfy any 
known condition of delight. 

I do not wonder that the Muslim boys spit at 
these men, and hate Christians ; for their idea of 
Christianity is derived from the indecent struggles 
and shabby splendors of this place, and the swarm 



IDOLATRY. 



215 



of miserable devotees from the Danubian provinces, 
who yearly inundate the city. I do not wonder 
that those children escape, like a cluster of timid 
birds, from the cold gloom of the church of the 
Sepulchre, into the broad, green, sunny spaces of 
the mosque of Omar. 

Ever since the Crusaders entered the city, and 
baptized the holy places in Muslim blood, through 
all their precarious kingdom of impotence and de- 
ceit, until Saladin cleansed the city of the lees of 
Europe, which had been drained into it — for in 
every stream the sands of gold are few to the grains 
of dross — and down to the present annual over- 
flow of Jerusalem with the refuse of south-eastern 
Europe, and European Asia, the mass of Christians 
in Jerusalem have been the indelible stain upon the 
name they assume. 

I speak merely of the fact, and strongly ; because 
3very man must feel strongly in Jerusalem. I do 
not quarrel with the poor old Bulgarian that he was 
not a man. I make no other complaint than that 
of disgust. If Jerusalem were nearer Europe or 
America, it would be different, at least it would be 
more decent, from the higher character of the popu- 
lation. But going up to Jerusalem as to the holiest 
city of the purest faith, you are disappointed by 
what you see of that faith there, as you would 



216 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



be upon approaching a banquet of wit and 
beauty, to find it a festival of idiots and the 
insane. 

The only visible Protestant effort in Jerusalem is 
the English chapel upon Mount Zion. It is not 
liable to the same objections as the church of the 
Holy Sepulchre. It is small, new, and of unexcep- 
tionable ecclesiastical architecture, and its main im- 
pression is that of the Rev. Dr. Duck's cravat, 
namely : snowy decorum. It is maintained by the 
joint efforts of England and Prussia, and its minis- 
trations are directed to the conversion of the Jews. 
The tribes of Israel are gathered into the fold at 
the rate of six, and in favorable years, eight, con- 
verts per annum. 

I went into the chapel one afternoon, but what 
relation the frigid system propounded by a very 
clean phantom in the pulpit, to a very clean con- 
gregation of phantoms in the pews, enjoyed to the 
simple and sublime humanity of the Christian teach- 
ings, was not stated. 

We returned from the church of the Sepulchre, 
through the silent streets, and sat upon the house- 
top until the stars were fading. The air was balmy 
as south winds in May. Perfect silence brooded 
over the innumerable little domes of the houses. 
And, when the call to prayer trembled from the 



IDOLATRY. 



217 



minaret of Omar, our muezzin of the daybreak was 
Isaiah, and these his wailing words : 

" Thy silver is become dross ; thy wine mixed 
with water." 
10 



XII. 



THE DEAD SEA. 

Golden Sleeve appeared one morning, arrayed 
in the arsenal, and, muttering something about " lad 
'people,'''' announced that the horses were saddled for 
the excursion to Jordan and the Dead Sea. 

You are still likely to fall among thieves, going 
down to Jericho, and the only safety is in being rob- 
bed before you start, by purchasing permission of 
the Arabs. The tribes that haunt the hill country 
near Jerusalem, are not entirely friendly toward 
each other ; but, by retaining a shekh of one of the 
most powerful among them, you insure tolerable 
security for the excursion. 

The shekh Artoosh, who awaited us at the foot 
of the Mount of Olives — for a Bedoueen fears to en- 
ter the city, whose very walls his stern wilderness 
chafes — was the ideal Bedoueen. He had the arched 
brow, the large, rich, sad and tender eyes, which 
are peculiar to the Orient, and which painters aim 
to give to pictures of Christ. It was the most 
beautiful and luminous eye I have ever seen. The 
other features were delicate, but full of force, and 



THE DEAD SEA. 



219 



the olive transparency of his complexion set his 
planet-like eyes, as evening light the stars. There 
was that extreme elegance in his face, and in the 
supple grace of his movement v^hich imagination 
attributes to noblemen, and which is of the same 
quality as the refinement of a high-bred Arabian 
horse. 

He wore, over a white robe, a long mantle of 
black goat's hair cloth, and his head was covered 
with the true Bedoueen head-dress — a Mecca 
handkerchief, or small shawl, of cloth of gold, with 
red borders and a long rich fringe. This is folded 
once, and laid smoothly upon the head. One end 
falls behind, between the shoulders, showering the 
fringe about the back ; and the other is carried for- 
ward, over the right shoulder, and caught up upon 
the left cheek, so half shielding the face, like the 
open vizor of a helmet. A double twist of goat's 
hair cord, binding the shawl smoothly, goes around 
the head, so that the top of it is covered only with 
the gold. 

Picture under this, that mystic complexion of 
the desert, steep it all in Syrian light, and you 
have what only the eastern sun can show. Mark, 
too, the shekh's white mare — valued, even there, 
at purses equal to a thousand dollars, and on whom 
he moves as flexibly as a sunbeam on the water. 



220 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

We skirted the Mount of Olives, on the way to 
Bethany. In a quarter of an hour we were in the 
hill-wilderness — the mountains that separate the 
valley of the Jordan from the plain of the sea. Our 
path was a zigzag way upon the slope. There are 
no houses or gardens, and Bethany, lying blighted 
in a nook of the hills, is only beautiful because she 
lived there, who loved much. A few olive-trees 
and blossoming vines linger, like fading fancies of 
greenness and bloom, along the way. A few Arabs 
pass, with guns and rusty swords. You feel that 
you are in a wild country, where the individual 
makes his own laws. 

Artoosh, like our shekh of the desert, was accom- 
panied by an older dignitary, a kind of grand 
vizier, perhaps, or genius of the army. In narrow 
passes of the road, throats and gorges of the hills, 
overhung by steep cliffs, the vizier rode forward 
and surveyed the position, gun in hand, and finger 
on the trigger. Several times he rode back to Ar- 
toosh, and, after a low council, they gallopped of! 
together, and reappeared upon the hills beyond 
riding around corners of the rock, and into bushy 
places, where foes might lurk. But it was quite 
their affair. We were only passengers, and watched 
their beautiful riding with unmingled delight in its 
grace, and we^it musing and singing along, in the 



THE DEAD SEA. 221 

monotonous noonlight, as in the safe solitude of a 
city. 

Sunset showed us, from the brow of the moun- 
tains, the plain of the Jordan. Far away, upon the 
other side, it was walled by the misty range of the 
Moab. Utter silence brooded over the valley — and 
a silence as of death. No feeling of life saluted our 
gaze. From the Alps, you look southward into the 
humming luxuriance of Italy, and northward into 
the busy toil of Switzerland, and the Apennines are 
laved with teeming life. But of all valleys that I 
had ever beheld from mountain-tops, this was the 
saddest. Not even the hope of regeneration into 
activity dawned in the mind. I was looking down 
into the valley of the Shadow of Death. 

Upon the brow of the mountain where we stood, 
tradition indicates the spot of the Temptation. The 
Rev. Dr. Duck was not at hand to destroy the 
identity, and I was willing to believe. We de- 
scended rapidly into the plain, and the camp was 
pitched among the green shrubs and trees that 
overhung a stream. It was Elisha's brook that ran 
sweet and clear, just behind our tent. 

It was a wild night. The heat was deadly, and 
the massive mountains rose grimly before us, as if 
all fair airs were forever walled away. The sky 
was piled with jagged clouds. Occasional showers 



222 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



pattered upon the tents, and keen lightning angrily 
flashed, while low, dull thunder was hushed and 
flattened in the thick air. None of us slept. It 
was a weird and awful night. 

A lurid dawn reddened over the valley. The 
leaden clouds caught the gleam upon their reef-like 
edges, but folded over again, into deeper blackness. 
They clung, affrighted, to the mountains, which 
were only a mysterious darkness in the dawn. A 
mocking rainbow spanned the blind abysses, and 
the east was but a vast vapor, suffused with crimson 
luminousness. The day was fateful and strange, 
and glared at lis, vengeful-eyed, like a maniac. We 
were in a valley, a thousand feet below the Medi- 
terranean. The Dead Sea had infected it with 
death. This was the spirit and gloom of the sea, 
without its substance. Thus it would compel 
the very landscape and atmosphere to its appall- 
ing desolation, before it overflowed it with its 
water. 

Through the vague apprehension of that super- 
natural morning, I heard the gurgling song of the 
little brook of Elisha, flowing clear and smooth out 
of the dark mountain region, and threading that 
enchanted silence with pleasant sound. I ran to it, 
and leaped in, and drank of the water. But the red- 
eyed morning scorned me as I lay in that sweet 



THE DEAD SEA. 



embrace, and moaning muttered thunders rehearsed 
the dreary day. 

The tents were struck. Artoosh, shekh of 
shekhs, leaped into his saddle, and the beautiful 
mare paced slowly away from the camp, and led 
us toward Jericho. The little stream called after 
me, rilling cool music through the leaves — softer 
ever, and farther, until I heard it no more. 

The path wound among the bushes upon the 
plain. A few large rain-drops fell with heavy dis- 
tinctness upon the leaves. No birds sang, as they 
sing all day in dead, sunny Jerusalem. There were 
no houses, no flocks, no men or women. We came 
to a grain tract, that waved luxuriantly to the 
horses' bellies, and out of the grain, upon a little 
elevation, arose a solitary ruined tower. 

It was the site of Jericho — the City of Palms, as 
Moses called it — and, although desolate now, palms 
were seen in the year 700 by Bishop Arculf, and in 
1102 by Sewulf, and the Crusaders found under 
them singular flowers, which they called Jericho 
roses. 

We saw no roses nor palms. We saw only a 
cluster of sad stone hovels, and wan-eyed men stared 
at us like spectres from the doors, and the scene 
was lonely and forlorn. Yet near one hovel a 
group of young fig-trees was blossoming, as fairly 



224 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

as ever the figs and roses could have blossomed in 
the gardens of Jericho, before the seven rams were 
yeaned, and Joshua was a beardless boy, in Israel's 
camp by the Red Sea. 

The elevation upon which stands the tower com- 
mands the plain, and a more memorable or remark- 
able landscape seen under such a sky is nowhere 
beheld. 

The vast reach of the plain lay silent and sha- 
dowed, as in early twilight, from the gleaming level 
of the Dead Sea on the south to the mountains that 
closed the valley upon the north. Westward lay 
the hills of Judea, and to the east the Moab moun- 
tains. Lower lines of nearer eastern hills rolled 
and curved before us. Over all hung the lurid sky. 
Vague thunder still shook the awed hush of morn- 
ing, and far over the Dead Sea, into the dense 
blackness that absorbed at the south its burnised 
water, fiery flashes darted. Grlimpses of pallid blue 
sky struggled overhead in the crimson vortex of va- 
por, and died into the clouds. Upon the tops of all 
the bushy trees near us sat solemn-eyed eagles and 
vultures, silent with fixed stare, like birds of prey 
dismally expectant. 

We rode quietly forward, lost in strange reveries. 
The plain, as we advanced, was level but barren. 
Tufted shrubs of impotent growth, as if shrinking 



THE DEAD SEA. 



'225 



from the spell that blights the region, desolated it 
the more. Austere and scriptural figures thronged 
the morning. Chiefest Joshua, who utterly de- 
stroyed the City of Palms, sparing — -of all its in- 
habitants, and when herds and cattle were slain — 
only the harlot Rahab. 

Yet along the enchanted plain glided other and 
stately figures. Not only was the reverent eye 
searching the monotonous line of the Moab hills for 
probable Pisgh, but the human heart remembered 
that Marc Antony gave all this country to Cleo- 
patra. Sweet and warm was that remembrance, 
last and farthest eastern trace of the " most sweet 
queen," and long lingering that day. 

But suddenly, like those who descry life in the 
midst of death, we saw the green trees that fringe 
the Jordan, and the whole party bounded at full 
speed over the plain. 

Beautiful, bowery Jordan ! Its swift, turbid stream 
eddied and fled through the valley, defying its death 
with eager motion, and with the low gurgling song 
of living water. It is very narrow— not more at that 
season than a hundred feet wide, and it has chan- 
nelled a deep bed in the soft earth, so that you do 
not see it until you stand on the very verge of the 
bank. Balsam poplars, willows, and oleanders lean 
over it, shrinking from the inexorable plain behind, 



226 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



clustering into it with trembling foliage and arching 
it with green, as if tree and river had sworn forlorn 
friendship in that extremity of solitude. 

Beautiful, bowery Jordan ! Yet you are sad as 
you stand dipping your feet in its water — sad as you 
watch this brave son of Lebanon rushing, tumultu- 
ously triumphant, like a victor in the race — rush- 
ing and reeling with terror and delight, and in a 
moment to be hushed and choked in the bosom of 
the neighboring sea — your eyes rove from the water 
to the trees that overhang it, with almost a human 
sympathy, and those trees are figures as lithe and 
pensive to your imagination as the daughters of 
Babylon who wept hopelessly by other waters. 

So leave it singing under trees in your memory 
forever. And when in after days you sit, on quiet 
summer Sundays, in the church, and hear the story 
of the Baptism, the forms around you will melt in 
the warm air — and once more those trees will over- 
lean, once more those w^aters sing, and the Jordan, 
a vague name to others, shall be a line of light in 
your memory. 

Artoosh turned to the south, and away from the 
river which bends toward the Moab mountains. 
We rode for an hour over the soft, floor-like, 
shrub-dotted plain, and to the shore of the Dead 
Sea. 



THE DEAD SEA. 



227 



It lay like molten lead, heavily still under the 
clouds : a stretch of black water gleaming under 
muttering thunder. Its shores are bare mountain 
precipices. No tree grows upon the bank ; no sail 
shines upon the sea ; no wave or ghostly ripple laps 
the beach, only dead drift-wood is strewn along the 
shore. No bird flew over, even the wind had died 
away. Moaning thunder only was the evidence of 
life in nature. My horse stooped to the clear 
water, but did not drink. It was a spot accursed. 
Did Cain skulk along this valley, leaving Abel in 
the field ? 

Yet it is not the desolation of pure desert which 
girds the Dead Sea, and that is its awfulness. Here 
are noble landscape-forms, and upon the plain fer- 
tility and possible cultivation. It is not the spell 
of death, but of insanity.' The aspect is not so 
much of dead features, as of those whence soul has 
departed. 

Here, when Moses looked down from those moun- 
tains, basked a gracious land flowing with milk and 
honey. Proud were its cities, sweet the shadow of 
the pomegranate and the palm. The pageant of an 
unknown life was here, but it disappeared before 
history. And you, to-day, can see the outline of 
that landscape, but ghostly now and grim. 

We tasted the water ; it is inconceivably bitter 



228 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



and salt. Sea-water is mild in the comparison. 
None of us bathed. Not alone the stickiness and 
saltness, but a feeling of horror repelled me. Hap- 
ly the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, shaped as 
incredible monsters, haunt those depths. I be- 
lieved the quaint old legend — "And if a man cast 
iron therein, it will float on the surface ; but if men 
cast a feather therein, it will sink to the bottom." 

We lay for an hour upon the shore, chatting 
with Artoosh, whose soft eyes sparkled with de- 
light at our efforts to comprehend what he said — 
dreaming dreams, and wondering if the women of 
Sodom were fair, and the men of Gomorrah brave, 
and if there were caustic irony upon female curi- 
osity in that earliest romance, the story of Lot, in 
which it is so hard that the natural yearning of a 
woman's heart toward her old home and her old 
gossips should meet a fate so stern — and whether 
the saltness of the Dead Sea was not Lot's wife in 
solution — and then Volney's sneer mocked my 
reverie, that, as Lot's wife was changed into salt, 
she must have melted in the next winter's rains. 

My musing eyes suddenly beheld a vast congre- 
gation upon the distant shore. — "The unhappy 
people flying from the cities," I carelessly reflect- 
ed ; for I think if the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah 
themselves had slowly risen from the sea, and with 



THE DEAD SEA. 



229 



sparkling battlements and spires, and all the hum 
of life, had drifted over the water into the black 
cloud of distance, I should not have marvelled 
much on that bev^itched morning. 

But the eyes of Artoosh kindled at the sight, 
and, pointing with his fifiger, he called to us 
eagerly, " Hadji, Hadji, (pilgrims, pilgrims)." 

We mounted and gallopped around the beach 
toward the crowd. It was a vast company of 
Greek pilgrims, who had been to the Jordan to 
dip in the sacred water the shrouds they had 
bought in Jerusalem, and which they would carry 
home with them, and preserve for their burial. 
They made an immense cavalcade or caravan, with 
which we concluded to return to Jerusalem. Most 
of the pilgrims were upon foot, and in every 
variety of costume, of which the European was 
the most graceless and undignified, and they were 
all carrying away a bottle of the precious Jordan 
water. 

We ascended the rugged mountain-side, directly 
from the Dead Sea. Through the vistas of yellow 
precipice I saw, for a long time, the line of black 
stillness ; but the spell was gradually dissolved. 

We rode busily about among the motley crowd 
of our new companions, undertaking impossible 
conversations with every masculine face that inter- 



230 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



ested, and with every gentle pilgrim who appeared 
propitious. 

At intervals upon the table-lands the Bedoueen 
dashed off, fleet as the wind, and graceful as the 
grain it bends, in their game of throwing the 
jereed or lance, and §o regaled us with Arabian 
sham fights. Then we saw the supple and wonder- 
ful horsemanship of the Bedoueen. Part of the 
animal they rode, they governed his movement by 
their own. The wild grace of the spectacle was 
poetic and exhilarating. It was the sport of Cen- 
taurs. It was a romance of Antar and of Ez-za- 
hir. 

Thus whiling away the day over the barren 
mountains and long plains, upon which little lived 
but a few flocks, and which were dotted with the 
black tents of the Arabs — we fell at length into 
the road near Bethany. 

Another cavalcade met us here, coming out from 
Jerusalem to w^elcome home the pilgrims. Among 
the rest, in the snuffy neighborhood which they 
affected, I saw Wind and Shower, not w^eeping 
profusely, with burning candles, but smiling, upon 
gay horses, in sympathy with the Bulgarian style 
of believers. 

But when I saw our old friend Peach Blossom, 
whom I had left in a tomb at Thebes, riding gal- 



THE DEAD SEA. 



231 



lantly forward between two of the Maccaboy fri- 
ars, and smiling with exhilaration, I felt that his 
hope " to catch the spirit of the East" .had been, 
religiously speaking, fulfilled. 

We all filed around the base of the Mount of 
Olives, a goodly company in the late twilight, and 
as I watched the multitude swarming by the points 
of the road, more easily my fancy saw the deluge 
of Crusaders flowing upon Jerusalem. 

The weird gloom of the morning had passed 
away. The round, yellow moon hung over the 
ruined convent of the Mount of Olives, as we 
paused at the gate of the garden of Gethsemane. 
There Artoosh took leave of us. The dreary and 
lonely landscape, which lies among remembered 
landscapes, as the Dead Sea among waters, was 
the constant scene of his life. I did not wonder 
then at the soft sadness of his eye, and at his in- 
frequent speech. There was wild and inscruta- 
ble romance in his whole existence. Our hands 
grasped in farewell, and the extremes of life 
touched. In me the farthest west thrilled with 
admiration and syrr.pathy for the deepest east. In 
his lambent eye flashed the light of sweet surprise 
at the recognition. 

Artoosh waited, sitting motionless upon his beau- 
tiful white mare, until we had passed the brook 



232 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



Kedron, and were climbing the hill toward the 
gate of the city. Then he turned slowly and alone 
toward the desert, and disappeared in the melan- 
choly moonlight. 



XIII. 



ADDIO KHADRA, 

Leisurlie was playing upon his concertito the 
exquisite trio from Don Giovanni, and in the deep 
enjoyment of the best music in an unmusical land, 
I felt the wisdom of Lady Georgiana Wolff in 
bringing her piano over the desert to Jerusalem. 

Golden Sleeve entered with a significant smile, and 
announced the venerable Armenian. 

The Howadji instantly assumed the gravity be- 
coming great Moguls, and the old gentleman enter- 
ed. We rose and conducted him to the sofa, and 
he naturally fell into the cross-leggedn ess of oriental 
sitting. But observing that our feet touched the 
floor, he endeavored secretly to untwine his own 
legs, and to pay us the delicate compliment of 
yielding to our Frankish prejudices, in sitting as we 
sat. 

The commander bustled about, grandiloquent 
with importance ; for he was to interpret the con- 
versation. 



234 



THE HOWADJI IX SYRIA. 



The Pacha, with gravity and safety, commented 
upon the weather. 

— " It was a beautiful day." 

" By the grace of Grod it was," was the affable 
reply, which made it a very pretty conversation as 
it stood. 

Leisurlie then suggested, in rather a general man- 
ner — 

" Tdih, tdih, (good, good)." 

The venerable visitor smiled, and retorted — 

" Tdih Icateir, (very good)." 

A pause naturally ensued, yet I was not discour- 
aged. It seemed to me that the visit and the con- 
versation were advancing as favorably and much in 
the same manner, as other morning calls I remem- 
bered, and I rubbed my hands with satisfaction as 
if delectable news had been broached. 

Meanwhile, Golden Sleeve had disappeared, to re- 
turn with chibouques and to order coffee, and we sat 
blandly smiling upon our guest and upon each 
other — while the old gentleman surveyed our apart- 
ment, and took up a gilt-bound book, a gay pen- 
wiper, and other little objects of a traveller's table, 
which he examined with great interest, and pro- 
nounced — 

" Tdih Jcateir.'' 

He then propounded an inquiry in choice Arabic, 



ADDIO KHADRA. 



235 



very slowly and distinctly, and very loudly, as if 
we were all deaf. Not having the faintest idea of 
what was asked, we smiled blandly again, but said 
nothing. Upon a repetition of the question, how 
ever, as in our parley with the guards at the gate 
of the city, we undertook a speech in parts, like a 
catch. 

Leisurlie, with a beaming smile, commenced — 

" La, (no)." 

I ventured as before — 

" BuJcara, (to-morrow)." 

And the sententious Pacha gravely concluded 
with, 

" KooltooluV 

« 

Which is a very terrible oath. 

The Armenian smiled, evidently perceiving that 
we were thrusting in the dark, and we all relapsed 
into smiling silence, until the commander returned 
with pipes and coffee. 

Then it suddenly occurred to Leisurlie that hav- 
ing this private opportunity of conversation with 
an oriental gentleman, it behooved him to charge 
his mind with such political and general informa- 
tion upon the East as he could obtain from our 
friend. And he probed him upon the political 
side. 

Alas ! the old gentleman's information was an 



236 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



apple of Sodom, tasteless and juiceless. In fact, 
he knew nothing about the " Eastern Question." 
And no happier was the result of the other general 
inquiries with which gentlemen of different parts 
of the world consider it their duty to perplex each 
other. 

Leisurlie regained his beaming smile, as he dis- 
covered there was no hope of authentic information 
upon any subject, and in his grateful gladness of 
heart, he proposed that the venerable white beard 
of our guest should be incensed — a delicacy of hos- 
pitality exclusively oriental. The wise men of the 
East, using the advantages which custom secures to 
them, have a pleasant way of clapping hands when 
bearded visitors arrive, and order slaves to bring 
chafing-dishes heaped with burning gums, of which 
the odor escapes through holes in the lid of the 
vessel, and which, held under the beard, imparts a 
perfume that lingers for several days after. It is no 
more than a just homage to that manly ornament, 
of which we western men of razors have no ade- 
quate idea. 

I commend the reflective reader to the quaint 
story of the beard of St. Nicephorus, as illustrating 
the eastern reverence for that appendage. It is told 
by Maundrell, who relates that Nicephorus was a 
person of the most eminent virtue, but the endow- 



ADDIO KHADRA. 



237 



ments of his mind were not properly manifested in 
bis beard, for, in fact, he bad none at all. " Upon 
occasion of which defect, he fell into a deep melan- 
choly." 

The devil stepped in at this juncture, as usual, 
with offers of assistance upon the signature of that 
little bond wherewith he takes security. But the 
saint repelled the overture, although with ardent 
longings for the beard, and seizing the downy tuft 
upon his chin — " for he had, it seems, beard enough 
to swear by" — to witness his firm resolution, lo ! 
the hair stretched with " the pluck he gave it and 
" as young heirs (did the reverend chronicler intend 
a pun ?) that have been niggardly bred, generally 
turn prodigals when they come to their estates, so 
he never desisted from pulling his beard till he had 
drawn it down to his feet !" 

But just as we were about consulting Golden 
Sleeve as to the probable presence of the chafing- 
dish in the house, our visitor rose and took leave, 
inviting us most cordially to return his visit ; which 
invitation, we, remembering Khadra, most cor- 
dially accepted — chorussing " tCiih hateir,^^ as the 
venerable beard disappeared. 

The next morning led us to the Armenian con- 
vent. It is full of great riches. The doors of sun- 
dry cabinets are of mother-of-pearl and tortoise- 



238 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



shell, and through such, I had no doubt, we should 
pass into the presence of Khadra. 

Golden Sleeve ushered us up broad flights of 
steps, until we reached the spacious, sunny roof of 
the building. The doors of various apartments 
opened upon it, and at one of them the commander 
stopped. It was opened immediately. A square 
little room was revealed, and the divan around the 
walls was apparently covered with bundles of choice 
and glittering silks and gold stuffs, which presently 
moved, however, and proved to be a party of Smyr- 
niote Armenians paying a call. 

The smile of the old man welcomed us, and we 
saluted the bales of silk and satin as we entered. 
The Smyrniotes all rose, and clustering together in 
gorgeous confusion, rolled like a brilliant cloud 
around the room, and then swept out of the door. 
Nor shall I ever know if there were a beautiful face 
among them. 

But seeing the Armenian mamma, I bowed lovf 
and said— remembering her Italian capabilities — 

" Fa hello oggi, signora, (It is a pleasant morn 
ing, madam)." 

" Si, non capisco, sig?wre, (Yes, sir, I don't under* 
stand,)" fell naturally from her lips. 

They were the last words I ever addressed as con- 
versation to the Armenian mother. But we renew- 



ADDIO KHADRA. 



239 



ed with the old gentleman the exciting themes of 
yesterday, and complacently sat silent in our own 
smoke. 

There was nothing in the room but the divan, and 
a scant strip of carpet before it. But it was sunny 
and cheerful, and the Armenian mother looked as 
maternal as any other. Presently, the father sum- 
moned a slave and dispatched him from the room, 
and a moment after, the dreamy eyes were looking 
in at the door, and the beautiful Khadra entered. 

In truth, a houri ; for, upon a glittering salver, she 
offered us the delicate conserves which only the 
orientals — those honey-loving epicureans — know. 
As the thick transparency melted upon my tongue, 
I saw only her richly humid eyes, and in the rose of 
Persia which flavored those sweets, I tasted but her 
glances. 

I drew from my pocket the flower she had dropped 
in the church, and unobserved of the others, pressed 
it to my lips. A sudden light of remembrance and 
recognition flashed in her eyes, but it faded instant- 
ly into their usual moonlike dreaminess. 

She passed to the others, and I marked the elabo- 
rate richness of her dress, and with the extremest 
satisfaction. Because brilliant and glowing stuffs, 
gems, and flowers, and gold, are the happy hints in 
nature of that supreme human beauty to which in- 



240 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



stinct directly attaches them wherever it appears. 
And so in the famous portaits of the world are the 
beautiful women arrayed. The Arabian poets are 
right when they clothe their heroines in magnifi- 
cence, and enshrine them in garden pavilions. So 
under birds of Paradise melting in lustrous heavens, 
and under the luxuriant splendor of tropical trees, 
should the lover steal, enchanted, to that bower, 
and pressing aside opposing flowers, whose souls, 
by that pressure, exhale in passionate odors to his 
brain, — look in upon his love. 

— " But a simple white muslin and a rose ?" — 
Ah ! Traddles, they are sweet and pretty, and 
they suit the "dearest girl." But the eastern beau- 
ty is another glory than the pale sweetness of your 
blonde. 

Khadra went out, and returned with sherbet. I 
touched her finger as I took my glass, — I drained 
it, and in my cup, her beauty was the melted 
pearl. 

She was silent as a phantom. When she had per- 
formed the graceful services of hospitality, she sat 
in a corner, where the sunlight streamed all over 
her and looked at me with the large eyes. Grazelle- 
eyes, perhaps, the poets would have called them, 
not so much because the eyes of gazelles are intrin- 
sically very beautiful, but because every association 



ADDIO KHADRA. 



241 



with the animal is so graceful and delicate, so wild 
and unattainable. 

The Pacha rose, but I lingered. I was loth to 
lose that strain of the Eastern poem. I lingered — 
but turning, slowly followed the Pacha, and that 
vision follows me forever. 

Artoosh forever rides away in the Syrian moon- 
light, — and after the bongiorno is said to the mother, 
and the last smile is lighting the pleasant face of the 
old Armenian, — Khadra stands in the sunshine of 
Jerusalem, looking at me as if the world were a 
dream, while I press the faded flower to my lips, 
and look, but do not murmur, — 

— "Addio Khadra." 
11 



XIV. 



COMING AWAY. 

" The flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds 
is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. 

" The fig-tree put^eth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the 
tender grape, give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and 
come away." 

So we sang with Solomon as a soft spring day led 
us out of the gate of Jerusalem. Our route lay- 
northward toward Damascus, and we paused on the 
stony way looking back upon the holy city, from the 
point whence Mary and her child, coming from Na- 
zareth, first beheld it. 

It is, perhaps, the finest view of Jerusalem. The 
broad foreground of olive groves narrows into the 
gorge of the valley of Jehoshaphat, and the gentle 
rise of the city from Mount Moriah to Mount Zion, 
reveals the mass of domes and roofs relieved by 
an infrequent minaret, and based in the green 
groves of the mosque of Omar. The eye clings 
to the aerial elegance of the dome, and tries 



COMING AWAY. 



243 



to fashion the architectural splendors which flash- 
ed from that very spot upon the eyes of the Naza- 
renes. 

Then returned the same vision which had greeted 
our approach, — the dream of gardens, terraces, and 
palaces, and the clustering magnificence of a metro- 
polis. But it vanished while we gazed. The solem- 
nity and sadness of the landscape oppressed us with 
their reality. For the traveller must still feel that 
if the Lord once especially loved the land, it has 
now only the bitter memory, not the radiant pre- 
sence, of that favor. 

The day saddened as we advanced into a dreary 
country. It rolled around us in rocky hills. There 
were no houses, no people. It is a landscape with- 
out grandeur, but monotonously dreary. The camp 
was pitched at sunset by the fountain at which 
Mary, returning to Nazareth, discovered that her 
son had tarried in Jerusalem. 

The next day, as we came into a richer region, 
Mary was still the mournful figure that haunted ima- 
gination. The landscape even to-day sympathizes 
with her, and its silence hushes and subdues your 
thoughts. Elected of the Lord to bear his child, 
she, the favored of women, should yet taste little 
maternal joy, — should feel that he would never be 
a boy, and, with such sorrow as no painter has 



244 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



painted and no poet sung, know that he must be 
about his father's business. 

The Roman church, however, which clings with 
such natural and tender piety to the image of the 
Madonna, has fostered many a picture in which ar- 
tistic imagination restores to Mary all that the hu- 
man heart desires. I remember in one of the small 
rooms of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a little paint- 
ing representing the mother, young and fair, sitting 
in a pleasant room and sewing. She is looking up 
with maternal fondness at the young Jesus, who 
comes running in, a beautiful boy, and holds up to 
her a passion-flower. 

But not in any pleasant room to Mary sewing 
and smiling, did her child truly show the passion- 
flower, but here at the fountain of El Bir, in the 
Syrian twilight, when she discovered that he had 
tarried in Jerusalem. 

As you go northward from Jerusalem, the loneli- 
ness of the country is oppressive. Grain waves in 
all this valleys. Olives and figs abound, but there 
are no scattered houses, only little villages, stern 
masses of gray stone upon high points, whose air 
and position are warlike. There are few figures in 
the landscape, and they pass with guns and stare 
strangely, nor always with a greeting. There are 
no proper roads in Palestine, only miserably stony 



COMING AWAY. 



245 



paths, along which the water runs in rainy days. 
Often the broad sweep of grain is beautiful. But 
so spacious a landscape is always sad, if unrelieved 
by some feature* humanly sympathetic. 

— " That we shall find in the town of Nablous," 
I said to Leisurlie, as we quietly eat our dates and 
alighted at the w^ell of Jacob, which lies finely at 
the opening of the valley of Nablous. The church, 
which the Empress Helena erected over it, has now, 
with the exception of four columns, happily disap- 
peared, and it lies open to the blue sky and the 
bare mountains. 

This Empress Helena, the mother of the Emperor 
Constantino, is also the mother of most of the 
church traditions and of the -churches themselves in 
Palestine. It was she who discovered the true 
cross, and went up and down the country finding 
nails, and footprints, and blood, and milk, and other 
consolations for the half-idolatrous feeling of the 
church which canonized her. 

I say half-idolatrous, because, although the inter- 
est in relics is very intelligible, and every man 
would be glad to have an original manuscript page 
of Shakespeare — yet the religious appeal through 
relics rather than symbols, when addressed to an 
unrefined and unspiritual nature, is sensual and not 
spiritual. The fact is lost in the form. The Romaw 



246 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



peasant kneeling before the statue of Jupiter, wiiich 
now stands for St. Peter, in his church at Rome, 
does really worship that identical bronze, as any 
spectator by observation and conversation may dis- 
cover — although he is taught by the Church that 
the statue is only a representation. But deeply as 
his mind is moved by the statue, when his eyes, 
and hands, and forehead are touched by the actual 
bones of a saint, does any man doubt that he 
ascribes to them, i^er se, a direct influence upon his 
spiritual condition? 

The Empress Helena was recently emancipated 
from Paganism, and regarded the new faith in a 
pagan spirit. The traveller gets very tired of her 
doings in Palestine, feeling, as he must feel, that, 
although a Romish saint, she was very little of a 
Christian, if measured bv any other than the exter- 
nal standards. He is quite able to believe the art- 
less story of the guides at Jerusalem — that Helena 
sought everywhere for the cross but vainly, until, 
" after spending a great deal of money, she found 
the true cross." 

Many are the modern travellers who tread closely 
in the path of the empress, anxious to see the foot- 
prints and nails, writing huge volumes upon the 
authenticity of localities, and losing, like most other 
critics, the spirit in the science. 



COMING AWAY. 



247 



It is not necessary to the satisfaction of Syrian 
travel, to settle the disputed points of position and 
tradition. The great points are forever settled. 
Jerusalem, the Jordan, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, 
and, in general, the whole country. Why vex 
your mind with the study of the surprising- erudi- 
tion that has been lavished upon the question 
whether the Calvary chapel in the church of the 
Sepulchre is the identical spot of the crucifixion 
— knowing, as you do, that here, in or around 
Jerusalem, Christ was crucified? The surprising 
erudition displayed will forever forbid the solu- 
tion of the question. And even were this spot 
determined to be the true one, after a single glance 
of reverence and curiosity, you would not wil- 
lingly look again upon the tawdry disfiguration of 
the place. 

To a man of thought and just religious feeling, it 
is the contemplation of the landscape and of all the 
external local influences with which Jesus Christ 
conversed, which is the true point of interest in the 
Holy Land. The curiosity that hunts the shape, 
and size, and direction of his footprints, is far from 
the sympathy of reverence. It is natural to a cer- 
tain degree, and honorable. But pushed to furious 
dispute and elaborate research, it becomes petty 
and wearisome. 



248 



THE HOWADJl IN SYRIA. 



— Is it suggested that it strengthens the evi- 
dences of Christianity ? 

But, on the other hand, does Christianity require 
any such evidences as this? 

— Is it thought to influence the authenticity of 
the narratives ? 

But is not the essential substance of those narra- 
tives entirely independent of localities ? 

In any case these decisions must all be specula- 
tive and relative. It is only quarrelling with 
great agony of argument, whether the robe of 
an emperor was edged with red or purple — and 
some ingenious commentator suddenly breaks in 
with the theory that the emperor had no robe 
at all. 

In Palestine, as elsewhere in the world, wherever 
the peculiar aspects of the climate, the landscape, 
and the life of the people harmonize with tradition, 
it is better to believe than to doubt. The Rev. Dr. 
Duck was dissatisfied with the identity of the tomb 
of Lazarus, because of the reason already related. 
On the other hand, the situation of Bethany and 
the general character of tombs at that period once 
ascertained, it was not unfair to suppose, for obvious 
reasons, that tradition had cherished the precise 
locality. It was simply easier to believe than to 
disbelieve. And the Pacha feared that the secret 



COMING AWAY. 



249 



of the Rev. Dr. Duck's incredulity lay in the fact 
that the tradition was "Romish." 

If this itching wish to thrust your finger in the 
hole in the side, haunts you constantly — look up 
and look around you. These are the same eternal 
sky and mountains his eyes beheld. Whether he 
suffered here or there — whether this is Pontius Pi- 
late's house or not — whether this is the Via Dolo- 
rosa or some other street, you know not, and can 
never know. If your faith relies in the slightest 
degree upon that order of testimony, behold your 
house is built upon the sand, and the rains of curi- 
osity will fall upon it, and the winds of speculation 
will blow against it, and the floods of erudition will 
sweep it utterly away. 

Sitting by the well of Jacob, you are lost in 
speculation, why, of the two faiths born in the East 
— Islam and Christianity — the one cannot flourish 
av/ay from its birth-place, while the other withers 
and dies there. 

So we sat and mused, looking up the beautiful 

valley of Sychar, between the mountains Ebal and 

Gherizim. The well lies at the confluence of this 

valley with the plain. Its mouth is very small, and 

is elevated but the height of a stone or two above 

the level of the ground. We rode up the beautiful 

valley. The bases of the mountains are terraced, 
11* 



250 



THE HOWADJI IN STEIA. 



and fine gardens fringe the stream, which flows be- 
tween, and the town of Nablous, the old Sychar, 
promises richly to the eye. 

It is famous for hating Christians, and is the scene 
of poet Harriet's millet-martyrdom. "I had three 
slaps in the face from millet stalks." The interior 
breaks the promise of the distant view. It is unut- 
terably filthy and disagreeable ; and yet, as you 
stumble through its streets, you can well believe 
that God loved the elders of children, who are still 
beautiful, although they do give you "three slaps in 
the face " with millet stalks, and throw stones at you 
from behind doors and corners. 

At Nablous I first felt the Syrian beauty. Deep, 
rich, dreamy eyes haunted the air. The children 
stood in gay costumes by the broken fountains, 
holding their vases of water upon their shoulder, as 
did the woman of Samaria, and not upon the head, 
as in the South. They turned and wondered ; they 
shrank, and veiled their faces, then glided like 
ghosts, away. 

A storm besieged us in Nablous, and a fellow- 
Christian, of the Armenian persuasion, secured us 
for his fleas, during the time we remained. We 
housed in a huge chamber, upon the. floor of which 
were spread our mats and carpets. It was only a 
large, damp, and dirty room, opening upon a roof 



COMING AWAY. 



251 



whence we could see Gherizim, and a few palms, 
and watch for a break in the clouds. 

They broke — the sun burst through, and led us 
to walk. Eemain in that damp and dirty room 
at Nablous, when you are there, until the sun 
will be your cicerone. None other shows Nablous 
as he. 

Sunken in lush foliage, it is a more Italian Sor- 
rento : 

" Save that there was no sea to lave its base, 
But a most living landscape." 

Seen from the mountain-side, its masses of broken 
walls, arches, minarets, domes, and gardens, swarm- 
ing with orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig, almond, 
and olive trees, make Nablous read to the eye as 
an Arabian poem to the ear. 

We reached a picturesque fountain near the gate 
of the city, and pushing under archways, through a 
way that more resembled a sewer than a street, we 
climbed steep, broken stone steps, to the Jews' 
synagogue. It is the seat of the old Samaritans — 
the most Jewish of Jews, of whom, at Nablous, 
they declare only a hundred are now living in the 
world. A white-bearded old man showed us the 
venerable copy of the Law, which has come down 
from some marvellous antiquity ; they call it three 
thousand five hundred years old. It is a roll of old 



252 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



parchment ; but I saw less of its yellow complexion 
than of the golden-hued faces that were peeping at 
us through the open dome grating of the ceiling, 
but which, as I solemnly glanced upward, were 
hastily concealed, while bounding footsteps rang 
along the roof. 

As we 'left Nablous the next day, and climbed 
across the mountain to old Samaria, now Sebaste, 
its remembrance returned to me, and remains, as of 
a beautiful garden, and, excepting Damascus, the 
most delicious spot to the eye in Syria. 



XV. 



ESDRAELON. 
We left Samaria behind. 

I sat upon a column, under a palm-tree, looking 
off upon the sea-like plain of Esdraelon. An old 
woman in faded rags, and croning to herself, brought 
a little cup, into which she poured resin, and then 
kindled a flame. The incense mingled with the twi- 
light coolness. She placed the burning cup in a 
tomb, and vanished, without looking at me. 

The twilight darkened, and the yellow moon hung 
large over the hills where the Witch of Endor lived. 
A young girl stole out of the town, bearing a taper, 
and gathering the veil closer around her face, as she 
saw the figure of a man and a Giaour. She drew 
from her robe a delicate vase, and, filling it with in- 
cense, she lighted it, and placed it in a tomb. Then, 
regardless of me, she glided away, leaving me sitting 
upon the column, under a palm-tree, remembering 
the mighty story of that plain. 

I was looking from the cemetery of Djneen, on 
the edge of the great plain of Esdraelon, the famed 



254 



THE HOWADJl IN SYRIA. 



battle-field of the Old Testament, the most memo- 
rable field of history. 

Your recollections as you contemplate that plain, 
are like visions of the night, they are so mighty, 
yet to you so unreal. In my dreams, as I looked, 
wonderful phantom hosts marshalled themselves 
upon the vague vastness of the plain over which 
snowy Herman made Switzerland in the north, and 
green Tabor was a graceful Italy. The whirring 
rush of ghostly chariots announced the fate of 
Sisera ; and Josiah, King of Judah, fell under a 
pitiless rain of Egyptian arrows. In vision, the 
Prophet Elisha fled along the plain, and the Leper- 
General of Damascus passed, going to wash in 
Jordan, and Saul, hidden in night, crept stealthily 
to the Witch of Endor. The Roman purple gleams 
through the moonlight, as Vespasian rides down the 
lines of his legions, and the fierce Crusaders swarm 
over the plain. Every nation famous in history, 
has encamped here, and here is yet to be fought 
tiiat battle of Armageddon, which shall decide the 
future fate of the East. 

This is the dowry of the plain of Esdraelon to 
memory and imagination, as you contemplate it 
from the palace-ruins of Ahab at Djneen, and such 
is the history you would fancy for it, were all the 
records dumb. 



ESDKAELON. 



255 



For we love to associate great events with noble 
landscapes, and thus to assert the harmony between 
nature and man. The Nile voyager, even were the 
monuments lost in sand, and Egyptian history per- 
ished, would yet endow the shores of the mysteri- 
ous river with the life, lore, and art of Egypt. 
Their final cause exists to the traveller's mind to- 
day, as to the Egyptian mind then ; and surely not 
the least satisfaction of travel is the intellectual 
and moral perception of the traveller, revealing to 
him the reason and naturalness of the different 
achievements of different nations. This implies, 
of course, that there is not an essential and fatal 
difference in men, and that a Hoosier can under- 
stand an Arab, and an Esquimaux a Sicilian. 

The proof lies in individual experience. Many a 
youth, musing upon the story of Greece and Rome, 
and then going to visit their remains, is secretly 
surprised at the want of strangeness in the impres- 
sion they produce. He is not startled in the ¥o- 
rum. He is only pensive in the Coliseum. He is 
but solemnized at Aboo Simbel. It is not as if he 
had stepped into a dream, as he supposed it would 
be ; but he feels a natural sympathy with the 
mighty ruins and the triumphant time they recall, 
as if he were visiting his own ancestral estates in 
another country. 



258 



THE HOWAt>JI IN STRIA. 



But if the boy thus loses the excitement of woq- 
der, the man gains a sweeter wisdom. His own 
experience explains to him the secret of Grreece and 
Kome. The race is one — as in form, so in essence, 
the complexion differing. He perceives that all 
civilizations, and artistic, intellectual, and military- 
achievements, are but blossoms of the same tree. 
It flowers in swart Egypt — in glowing Syria — in 
polished Grreece — in red Rome — in fierce Huns and 
swift Groths — in wise England — in eager America ; 
and he, youngest child of the race and of Time, 
stands beneath those spreading boughs and beholds 
the various splendor of the flowers flashing and fad- 
ing, but all fed by the same life, and offering but a 
single beauty to the pensive eye of thought. 

A perfect day broke over Esdraelon. The great 
plain stretched, unmarked by villages or forests, or 
any sufficient forms of life, thirty miles in length 
and eighteen in breadth. Our way lay across it to 
the hills that skirted it to the north. They w^ere 
the hills of Galilee. 

In the sunrise we descended to the plain. It 
v^as brilliant with flowers, and v^ith grain, and lay 
to the sun hke a vast, fertile meadow. The snowy 
Hermon, in the deep blue distance, gave it dignity 
and grandeur. There was occasional ploughing, 
but the spectral husbandmen, who can never se- 



ESDRAELON. 



257 



cure their crops against the predatory Arabs, ana 
the teams of camels and donkeys, only deepened 
the superb lifelessness of the flowery level, over 
which innumerable birds revelled in the morning 
air, as if to purify with song the interval between 
the fierce past and the fierce future, prophecied for 
the region. On the solitary plain it was not difii- • 
cult to make the words of Deborah the refrain of 
their singing — "The highways were unoccupied: 
the inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased 
in Israel." 

We, too, loitered idly over the mighty battle- 
field, singing. Assyrians, Jews, Gentiles, Saracens, 
Egyptians, Persians, Druses, Turks, Arabs, Crusad- 
ers, and Frenchmen had here fought through the 
dim centuries of history, and we American Howadji 
remained masters of the field. The very stars in 
their courses fought against Sisera in the shadow of 
yonder mountain, and we trotted leisurely along, 
humming Vedi^ai carino. 

I shared, in that moment, the feelings of a young 
military scholar whom I once met in the cars go- 
ing from Baden to Basle. A dreamy summer day 
flushed the landscape, and the father, telling end- 
less battle-stories to stimulate his son's ardor, sud- 
denly pointed out a monument to Marshal Turenne. 
We saw it vaguely as we darted by. But I marked 



258 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



no kindling ambition in the boy-soldier's eye, only 
a gleam of satisfaction — as if it were better to be 
young, alive, and in the cars, than old, dead, and 
famous, like the Marshal Turenne. 

Even so, Sisera and Saul, Josiah and Vespasian, 
were but ghosts glimmering in the radiant day. 
Their lives, and fightings, and deaths, were only 
themes of idle reverie in the intervals of singing. 
Happy the thought that distils one pure drop of 
wisdom from old history. 

" 0 Allah !" said to me the graybeard merchant 
in the bazaar of Damascus — " what acres of roses 
have gone to this little vial of attar of rose !" 

Yet as toward noon we neared the hills of Gali- 
lee, through the murky gleam of universal military 
glory which hung over the plain of Esdraelon stole 
a more penetrant ray. Across the fiery flash of 
scimitars, and the crowd of hurtling arrows, and 
the glittering Roman eagles, a palm branch waved 
and hushed them into defeat. As we neared the 
hills of Galilee the resounding echo of arms died 
away, and in visions of the noon — surpassing those 
of twilight — triumphant among all those hosts, and 
subduing emperors, sultans, and kings, rode upon 
a donkey a greater than Solomon, a King crowned 
with thorns and sceptered with a palm branch. 



XVI. 



AVE MAKIA! 

As we entered the hills of Gralilee, low, and bare, 
and stony, the mighty romance of the morning ended, 
and our minds were filled with a very humble story. 

We wound among the hills in silence, stumbling 
up one of the worst paths in Palestine, and, at 
length, quite in their heart, descended under trees 
upon a secluded and lovely valley. It was dotted 
with olive groves, and oaks, and pomegranates, 
with groups of Arabs, and camels, and horses, and 
occasional flocks. The same low, stony hills, like 
swelling, bare uplands, inclosed it, and in the depths 
of the valley, leaning against the mountains, and 
holding up to welcome us, a minaret, a few "cy- 
presses, and a palm, lay little, gray, flat-roofed Na- 
zareth. 

The valley was tranquil as a pastoral picture, and 
the rocky, steep hills were grim and melancholy. 
All the greener, therefore, were the trees, all the 
more gracious and significant the smooth pasture 
upon which the animals quietly grazed. 



260 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



We descended into the valley with extreme satis- 
faction ; for it is one of the places which satisfy ima- 
gination. Its seclusion and domesticity of aspect 
harmonize with the sentiment of the maternal in- 
stincts, and they are strong in your sympathy the 
day you come to Nazareth, for it is a day consecrate 
to the Madonna. 

Over these hills she walked, the Virgin Nazarene, 
from the gray little village leaning upon the moun- 
tains. And as she paused by this fountain, filling 
her vase with water, even as yonder Nazarene girl 
is filling hers this afternoon ; or, as fascinated by 
the thoughtful twilight, she strayed quite away 
from the little village, still she meditated the pro- 
mise to some daughter of Israel, and returning at 
evening with thoughts stranger and brighter than 
the stars, wondered, and wondered again, " Can any 
good come out of Nazareth ?" 

As, descending into the plain, the words rose to 
my mind, the music of the convent bell came ring- 
ing down the valley. Sweet and strange was that 
music in the pensive silence of Palestine. It sang 
my thoughts to meditation, and my heart sang 
hymns, and preached of remembered days and 
places ; June Sundays in country churches, to which 
we walked along the edges of fields, and under 
branching elms hushed in Sunday repose ; the long 



AVE MARIA! 



261 



village road, with the open wagons and chaises, in 
which the red-handed farmers in holiday suits drove 
the red-cheeked family to the church door ; the bare 
wooden church, full of daylight, with the square hole 
in the ceiling, through which the sexton looked to 
see if the parson were in the pulpit ; the gray-haired 
minister, in his winter woollen gown, or summer silk 
one, and always with black gloves, slit in the mid- 
dle finger that he might turn the leaves ; the read- 
ing of the Bible, in a cheerful, sing-song tone, to 
which its choicest sentences always sing themselves 
now ; the setting the tune with nasal psalmody, 
and the growling bass-viol, as if a hidden artist were 
playing upon a lazy lion ; the long sermon, of which 
I faithfully remembered the text and forgot the drift, 
and in which the names of Galilee, and Mary, and 
Nazareth were sweet sounds only, filling my mind 
with vague imagery, whose outline has long since 
faded ; the flowers, and the sunny hay fields breath- 
ing sweetly in at the open window, and all the 
sweeter when the parson read : " Yet I say unto 
you, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 
one of these" ; the people in the pews, all whose 
faces have vanished now, save hers, so many years 
my elder, yet still radiant with youth, queenly in 
beauty and in bearing, who came when all were 
seated following the old grandfather with powdered 



262 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



hair and gold-headed cane, and who sat serene during 
the service, while I, an eight years' child, felt a 
vague sadness overshadow the sweet day, and quite 
forgot the sermon. 

This was the music of the convent bell of Naza- 
reth. In that calm Syrian afternoon, memory, a 
pensive Ruth, went gleaning the silent fields of 
childhood, and found the scattered grain still golden, 
the morning sunlight yet fresh and fair. 

Troops of girls passed us as we came to the town. 
Their arms and hands were touched with kohl, they 
wore strings of pewter coins for necklaces, and their 
heads were girt with brilliant handkerchiefs. They 
did not veil their faces, and at times, from out the 
throng, great eyes rose bewilderingly upon our gaze. 
I saw many an eye in the Nazareth girls, whose 
light would have illuminated an artist's fame forever, 
could he have fixed it within the pictured face of his 
Madonna. 

The traditions which cluster around Nazareth are 
so tender and domestic, that you will willingly be- 
lieve, or at least you will listen to the improbable 
stories of the friars, as a father to the enthusiastic 
exaggerations of his child. With Jerusalem and its 
vicinity, the gravity of the doctrine is too intimately 
associated to allow the mind to heed the quarrels 
and theories about the localities. It is the grandeur 



AVE MARIA! 



263 



of the thought which commands you. But in Naza- 
reth, it is the personality of the teacher which in- 
terests you. All the tenderness of the story centres 
here. The youth of the Madonna, and the unre- 
corded years of the child belong to Nazareth. There- 
fore imagination unbends to the sweet associations 
of domestic life. The little picture in the Uffizi re- 
curs again, and the delicate sketches of Overbeck, il- 
lustrating the life of Christ, in which, as a blooming 
boy in his father's shop, he saws a bit of wood into 
the form of a cross, looking up smilingly to the 
thoughtful Joseph and the yearning Mary, as when 
he brings her the passion-flower in the pleasant 
room. 

The tranquil afternoon streams up the valley, and 
your heart is softened, as if by that tender smile of 
Mary ; and yielding to the soliciting friars, you go 
quietly and see where Joseph's house stood, and 
where the Angel Gabriel saluted Mary, and the 
chimney of the hearth upon which she warmed food 
for her young child, and baked cakes for Joseph 
when he came home from work, and the rock 
whence the Jews wished to cast Jesus, and another 
rock upon which he eat with his disciples. 

You listen quietly to these stories, and look at 
the sights. The childish effort to give plausible 
form to the necessary facts of the history of the 



264 



TH* HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



place, is too natural to offend. When the pretence 
is too transparent, you smile, but do not scold. 
For, whether he lived upon this side of the way or 
upon that, this is the landscape he saw for thirty 
years. A quiet workman, doubtless, with his fa- 
ther, strolling among the melancholy hills of Gralilee, 
looking down into the lake-like vastness of Esdrae- 
ion, where the great captains of his nation had 
fought — hearing the wild winds blow from the sea — 
matching the stars, and remembering the three days 
if his childhood, when he sat in the temple at 
Jerusalem. 

Walking in the dying day over the same solitary 
hills you will see in the sunset but one figure mov- 
ing along the horizon — a grave manly form, outlined 
upon the west. 

Here was the true struggle of his life — the resolve 
to devote himself to the work. These are the ex- 
ceeding high mountains upon which he was lifted 
in temptation ; here in the fullness of his youth 
and hope Satan walked with him, seductive. For 
every sin smiles in the first address, says Jeremy 
Taylor, and carries light in the face and honey in 
the lip. Green and flowery as Esdraelon, lay the 
valleys of ease and reputation at his feet ; but 
sternly precipitous, as the heights of Galilee, the clifis 
of duty above him buried their heads in heaven. 



AVE MARIA! 



265 



Here, too, was he transfigured ; and in the light 
of thought he floats between Moses and Ellas, be- 
tween faith and duty, and the splendor of his de- 
votion, so overflows history with glory, that men 
call him God 

12 



SUMMER. 



— " Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness with jiii- 
lars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense ?" 

In late April, in the vale of Zabulon, riding from 
pensive Nazareth in the mountains, to heroic Acre 
upon the sea, the triumphant pomp of the Syrian 
summer bursts upon you. 

You cannot see the advent of that beauty upon a 
plain, or in a forest, or upon a hill, or along the 
sea-shore, alone. It is the combination of all 
V7hich reveals it. Flowers set like stars against 
the solemn night of foliage — the broad plain flash- 
ing with green and gold, state livery of the royal 
year — the long grasses languidly over-leaning 
winding water-courses, indicated only by a more 
luxuriant line of richness — the blooming surfaces 
of nearer hills, and the distant blue mistiness of 
mountains, walls and bulwarks of the year's garden, 
melting in the haze, sculptured in the moonlight, 
firm as relics of a fore-world in the celestial amber 
of clear afternoons — it is only in this combination 



SUMMEE. 



267 



of variety, through which, on a brilliant day, you 
pass over the vale of Zabulon, that you recognize 
the splendor of Syria. 

But not the flute-sweetness of lawns and mead- 
ow lands alone ; not the sombre bass of dark for- 
ests ; not the stringed unison of gently-waving hills, 
nor the keen tone of a mountain outlined horizon 
can alone satisfy the imperial love of beauty — only 
the rhythmical assent of all completes the symphony 
of the Syrian year. 

A bland presence it advances from the Caspian, 
perfumed with the rose-secrets of Cashmere, with 
the breath of lands watered by the Tigris, and of 
the gardens of the Euphrates. Following the sun 
with beauty, it smoothes the land into grace, bloom, 
and summer. Touching the snows of Lebanon, 
they become beautiful feet upon the mountains, 
running with glad tidings to the sea, and the year 
follows them, pausing upon the shore, and breath- 
ing balm far over the water. 

In the vale of Zabulon, quickened by the fullness 
and ripeness of the unwithering warmth, penetrat- 
ed with a sense of delight in the year, which not 
even Italy imparts, I recalled the words said to me 
in passing, years before, by a poet in New England — 

What Syrian sunshine!" 

It was the most delicate of June mornings, one 



268 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



of those rare days with us, in which the sky charged 
with rosy light seems but an evanescent bloom 
upon the air, and, as we met upon a village common,' 
overbreathed by blossoming apple orchards, the poet 
said, " What Syrian sunshine !" 

The words haunted me. They expressed what I 
had vaguely felt of the summer. With the poet they 
were metaphor. With me they became a feeling. 
It ripened into desire. The East lay in my imagi- 
nation, a formless glow, like a distant oleander bush 
in flower. I came to the garden, to the oleander, 
to the East. The glow was a burning beauty all 
around me. I plunged spurs into my horse and 
gallopped through the flowers, shouting, as if the 
poet in the cool New England village could hear 
me — " What Syrian sunshine !" ^ 

If you doubt, read Solomon's Song. That whole 
book is a summer lyric of Syria. The very sensu- 
ousness of the imagery reveals the voluptuousness of 
the impression. Yet how large, how rich, how sug- 
gestive! How it is forever the first of loVe-songs! 
To-day Solomon might lie upon a sunny side of 
Zabulon, and, wooing the landscape, sing that song 
anew. For strange as it appears of that most 
passionate of poems, it is Wordsworthian in its in- 
tense reality. The glow that permeates it is the 
inexpressible inspiration of the Syrian summer. 



SUMMEE. 



269 



Advancing through the festal land, gladly wreath- 
ing the pensive image of Nazareth with these 
abounding flowers, you repeat that song as the only 
justice to your eye and heart. And you peal it a 
cheerful battle-cry against all the doubters — baring 
your brow to the summer as it deepens around you, 
and singing to it as Solomon sang to his beloved — 
" Behold thou art fair, my love : behold thou art 
fair."— 



XVIII. 



ACRE. 

We came to Acre, a little, dull, ruined old town 
on the very edge of the sea, which dashed against 
it in foaming breakers, that day. 

It has been battered in all kinds of wars. In 1281 
the Saracens thundered at its gates with sixty thou- 
sand cavalry, and a hundred and sixty thousand in- 
fantry. Eichard Coeur de Lion reduced it. Ibra- 
him Pacha carried it by assault, and in 1840 it was 
destroyed by the explosion of its own magazine 
while the British fleet lay before it, bombarding. 
It has been taken many times — although Napoleon 
could not take it — and looks no longer worth the 
taking. The sea dashes upon it as upon an old 
hulk which it would gladly utterly destroy. 

But still in Acre is an exquisite mosque, the 
mosque of Sultan Djezzar, a mosaic of fine marbles 
rising from cypresses and palms. Its dome is ruined 
by much bombarding ; but a fountained kiosk upon 
a pavement shadowed by palms, and the airy arcade 
which surrounds the inclosure, like the gallery of a 



ACEE. 



271 



cloister — except that this breathes of pleasure and 
not of meditation — give memory still a nucleus in 
Acre. 

As we stroll about the ruined fortifications in the 
still noon, and look across the water to the misty 
headland which, braving the sea at the farther ex- 
tremity of the crescent beach, nine miles av/ay — 
Golden Sleeve tells us is Mount Carmel, we listen 
to the tradition which quaint Henry Maundrell tells 
of the convent of Acre. 

When, after that turbulent thundering at the 
gates, the Saracens entered the city, the lady abbess 
of the nunnery fearing for herself and nuns the fate 
of houris, summoned them together as the enemy 
approached, and exhorted them to cut and mangle 
their faces, thus to quench in their own blood the 
lust of the conquerors. As she spoke she set them 
the example, and all the nuns inspired by her lofty 
courage, did likewise. And while they still stood 
bleeding and mangled, the soldiers burst into the 
convent, and mad with disappointment, immediate- 
ly slew them all — " thus restoring them, as in chari- 
ty we may suppose," says the grave and sweet 
chronicler, " to a new and inviolable beauty." 

Another quaint old legend of Acre has the flavor 
of pure stoicism. 

In the days of St. Louis, one of the monks en- 



272 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



countered an old woman threading the streets of 
Acre with a cruse of water and a pan of coals. He 
asked her why she carried them. The water to ex- 
tinguish hell, said she, and the fire to burn up 
Paradise, that then the selfishness of man may 
be subdued, and he may love Grod for himself 
alone. 

The bazaars were busy in Acre. The life of the 
town was concentrated around the shops, which are 
called as gay as those of Aleppo, and the turban ed 
gossips with the slouching soldiery criticized the 
Howadji as they rode slowly out of the ruined little 
town. 

The beach between Acre and Mount Carmel is 
not surpassed in my memory. Certainly none so 
spacious connects two points so variously famous. 

The sea smoothed the crescent shore, and polished 
a black marble pavement for our going. The bril- 
liant day was melting into the tenderness of evening 
light, but was still so soft and glowing that I could 
well fancy Palestine once more beloved of the Lord. 
All day we had seen Mount Carmel from Acre, hazy 
in the distance ; and it was hard to feel, as we look- 
ed at it, gallopping over the beach, that it was Eli- 
jah's mount, and that the sparkling sea was the 
same over which the boy saw the cloud of a hand's 
size gathering. 



ACRE. 



273 



It was hard to feel this, because the Mediterra- 
nean had invaded the gravity of the Syrian journey, 
and the serious thoughts which it is impossible to 
escape among the hills of G-alilee, were smothered 
in the flowers of Zabulon. The sea brought the 
vision and remembrance of other lands which it 
laved. The austere imagery of prophetic times 
melted in the glad day. Zabulon whispered — 
" Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these," and the vision of solemn-eyed prophets 
faded. 

Moreover, the landscape of all famous stories has 
a character which the eye can never see. Even 
when you have stood upon Marathon, and have seen 
the mountains which look down upon it, imagina- 
tion, despite memory, will still marshal the resound- 
ing hosts upon another plain than that. Herodo- 
tus, Josephus, Thucydides, Xenophon, first mould 
the images of their story in the plastic imagination 
of the boy, and no visible and possible landscape is 
vast enough to hold them. The great councils of 
Rome, the triumphs, the processions, and the fiery 
words which time has not chilled — these were not 
held, and seen, and spoken, in the forum whose ruins 
you have seen, but in some fair and eternal forum 
of the imagination. What Bermuda voyager has 

ever seen the " still vexed Bermoothes" — or who 
12* 



274 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

ever felt the gray old olive grove on the shore of the 
Brook Kedron, to be the true Gethsemane ? 

And because Solomon's song had been the proem 
and the poem of the day, it v^as difficult to see in 
the hazy headland, like a point in Nicholas Poussin's 
landscapes, the Carmel of grim history. 

We spurred along the beach upon the full run. 
Golden Sleeve dropped chibouque and kurbash, 
scrambled off his horse and on, and gave gallopping 
chase. The Arabs swarmed after, wide-flying — as 
Homer would have sung — on the shore of the loud- 
sounding sea. The Pacha and I dashed ahead of 
the turbanned crew, Coeur de Lion and Philip 
Augustus before Saladin, the Crusaders before the 
Saracens. 

— Or Julian and Maddalo, rather, who ran along 
the Lido shore of the same sea, — 

" For the winds drove 

The living spray along the sunny air 

Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, 

Stripped to their depths by the awakening North, 

And from the waves sounds like delight broke forth 

Harmonious with solitude, and sent 

Into our hearts aerial merriment." 

I leaned over the neck of my horse, straining 
ahead. But in an instant I rolled upon the sand. 
The stirrup in which I was thoughtlessly hanging 



ACRE. 



275 



my whole weight, broke, and I fell toward the sea, 
that laughed at me softly with inextinguishable 
laughter. 

" Kooltooluk r cried the Pacha, reining up. 

My good Arabian stopped instantly, turned to 
look at me, and the next moment we were all wide- 
flying again, in the exhilarating air, Crusaders and 
Saracens, and the sun left us climbing Mount Car- 
mel. 



\ 



XIX. 

SEA OF GALILEE. 

A SHEET of dark-blue water among naked hills, 
is the Sea of Galilee. Only the dismal little town 
of Tiberias breaks the mournful monotony of the 
shore, from which the bold hills gradually recede 
higher and farther, to the snowy sublimity of 
Hermon. 

We came over the mountains from Nazareth, and 
as we descended to the lake and saw the shattered 
walls of Tiberias with a few palms, sad and unhand- 
some in the wind, it seemed to me the most desolate 
and forlorn of towns. In 1835 an earthquake shook 
down the village, and the whole landscape has the 
sullen aspect of a volcanic region. We looked in 
vain upon the dead calmness of the lake's surface for 
any trace of the beautiful Jordan, which flows 
Through it. Not a ripple disturbed its dream. In- 
deed, the profound solitude and mountainous stern- 
ness of the region, reminded me of the bewitched 
desolation of the Dead Sea. Here again the woe 



SEE OF GALILEE. 



277 



denounced against the cities of the shore has blast- 
ed the sea. 

With what melancholy curiosity the eye follow- 
ed Golden Sleeve's finger toward the site of Ca- 
pernaum. 

The tent was pitched on the high bank over the 
lake, with the door toward Mount Hermon, upon 
which the dying day played wondrous symphonies 
to the eye. There was no sail or boat upon the 
lake, and we strolled into the town. 

It was at Tiberias that Eothen attended the con- 
gress of fleas, and the filth and squalor of this chapel 
of ease to the holy city of SafFet in the mountains, 
do not belie their fame. The town is thronged with 
Flemish Jews who await here the coming of the 
Messiah, who v^ill reign at neighboring Saflet, before 
going to Jerusalem. The men, clad in every variety 
of sordid rags, with long elfish earlocks, a wan and 
puny aspect, and a kind of drivelling leer and cun- 
ning in the eye, were a singular combination of 
Boz's Fagin, and Carlyle's Apes of the Dead Sea. 
Never, surely was so bewitched and strange a popu- 
lation. They had the sallow chalkiness of com- 
plexion peculiar to German tailors, and wore the 
huge bell-crowned black hat which they wear every- 
where else in the world. But the women, as if to 
complete the confusion, were even comely, and their 



278 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



fair icund faces, with caps, and the coarse substan- 
tiality of the German female costume, perplexed the 
fancy upon the Sea of Galilee. 

Artistic Leisurlie drew a Cliristian girl with her 
water jar, and tried to draw a Muslim boy. But he 
was afraid, and ran shouting away, laughingly point- 
ing out one of his companions as a proper victim. 
But we started upon seeing him. Ketzsch had been 
before us, and in his Mephistophiles has drawn only 
a horribly perfect likeness of that boy of Tiberias. 

The morning was more merciful to the Sea of 
Galilee. The sun clomb out of the east over top- 
pling clouds, while we skirted the lake, often walk- 
ing our horses in the water. 

The shore blazed with flowers. Had ours been 
the bridal train of Helen, skirting classic seas, the 
way could not have been more festally adorned. 
One rhododendron upon the shore of Galilee flames 
in my memory yet, a symbol of the tropics. The 
tangled luxuriance of flowers brushed against us, as if 
to secure in our hearts sweeter remembrances of 
Galilee than that of the apes of the Dead Sea, with 
long ear-locks who haunt the miserable Tiberias. 
These flowers are the relics of Capernaum, for so 
utterly has the city vanished from the earth. A few 
cattle grazed on the lake-side, or stood contempla- 
tivein the water. Two or three Bedoueen shepherds 



SEA OF GALILEE. 



279 



gazed listlessly over the lake. It was a bewildering 
morning. 

Every day as you journey in Palestine, the natu- 
ral imagery of Jesus' words solicits your eye and 
touches your heart. 

As you went down through flowery Zabulon to the 
sea you heard him say — " Solomon in all his glor}^ was 
not arrayed like one of these." As your eye wanders 
musingly over the landscape, and marks the solitary 
towns upon the hills, especially SalFet above you on 
the mountains, when you turn away from the sea of 
Galilee, you recall : *' A city set upon an hill cannot 
be hid." Watching the simple and cumbrous pro- 
cesses of grinding grain between stones, usually done 
by women, you understand that " one shall be taken 
and the other left." As the camels and asses pass 
laden with goat-skins of wine, you understand why 
" no man putteth new wine into old bottles." 

These things impress you with the reality of that 
life. If a teacher were now walking up and down 
the land, and were illustrating his words by the ob- 
jects that met his eyes, you would constantly hear the 
familiar figures of the gospels. And these unchang- 
ed aspects of landscape and life surviving through 
all vicissitudes of race and fortune, annihilate time 
and make you the contemporary of Jesus, as in the 
Pestum temples you are a fellow-citizen of Pericles. 



280 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



We emerged upon the upper valley of the J ordan. 
It is broad and beautiful, but desolate, like the rest 
of the country. Scattered Bedoueen camps and cat- 
tle were the only population. Luxuriant grain 
waved on every hand, which is harvested by the 
Bedoueen, who come in for that purpose from the 
desert. Flowers grow rankly, and the plain was so 
spacious and mountain- walled, that there is nothing 
fairer in its kind, except perhaps, the Swiss valley 
of Unterwalden. 

Crossing the main stream of the Jordan upon a 
picturesque ruined bridge, of Roman construction, 
which commands a view of the whole valley, and 
beyond which are remains of a Roman way, the 
only proper road in Palestine, we began to ascend 
the spurs of the Gebel Shekh, or Mount Hermon, 
toward Panias, and so reached our last station in the 
Holy Land. 



XX. 



PANIAS. 

Panias is the true point at which to take leave 
of Palestine ; for there what is most beautiful in 
human history mingles with what is most sublime. 
At Panias, the grace of Glrecian story blends with 
the gravity of Christian ethics. 

It is the site of that strange old legend of Plu- 
tarch, which Milton, Schiller, and Mrs. Barrett 
Browning have sung. Here were the statues of 
Pan and his peers and nymphs, which fell and shiver- 
ed, with a moan far resounding over land and sea, at 
the moment of Christ's nativity. It was even more 
than a moan, and the words, " Great Pan is dead," 
swept across the Mediterranean, and were heard by 
certain mariners. 

If, as that poet of the Syrian sunshine has said, 
"Ever does natural beauty steal in like air and en- 
velope great actions," it is as often true of the sites 
of beautiful tradition. Certainly the fountain of 
Egeria, by its waving tapestry of maiden-hair fern, 
appeals to the eye to-day, as the story of the nymph 



282 



THE HOWADJI IN SYE/.A. 



appeals to the imagination. Even were there no 
legend, your musing fancy at the fountain would in- 
stinctively create it. 

So at Panias. a feeling of poetic tradition inheres 
in the landscape. It is not lovely and pathetic only, 
as the Syrian landscape generally is, except on those 
choice days, when Solomon in all his glory rules the 
flowery land. But as you turn from the great up- 
per valley of the Jordan, and wind, ascending, 
among the warm, oak-covered slopes, and see at 
length the Italian picturesqueness which embosoms 
the town — then imagination demands a legend. 

You find it, and it is the most striking of all. 

You will well remember Panias, because you 
stand there as a man whose sympathy does not begin 
with a time or a person, but which acknowledges 
the same imperial truth and beauty under whatever 
masques. 

It was the Cesarea Philippi of the New Testa- 
ment. There is no record that Jesus was ever far- 
ther north than this spot. Yet here you wonder if 
he did not go on, and look at Damascus,' as at Naza- 
reth you wonder if he ever went down through 
Zabulon to the sea. Probably not ; for had he 
done so, it would have reappeared in the imagery of 
his teachings, as did the other large and simple 
features of what he saw. 



PANIAS. 



283 



A lofty cliff overhangs Panias, ana n its face the 
niche is hollowed in which the statues stood. 

You will figure Jesus standing before the grotto ; 
but he will not seem to you to scorn the statues as 
idols — which was the weakness of Mohammed at 
Mecca — but to reverence in them the holy instinct 
of beauty from which all art springs. He would not 
have shared the very error he condemned in idola- 
try, namely, the confusion of the substance with 
the shadow ; but, whatever superstition may have 
seen in those statues, he would have recognized 
their significance. " I come not to destroy, but 
to fulfill." The invisible world made visible in 
these fair forms, he would say, is yet fairer than they 
suggest. 

He who was baptized in Jordan, would not fright 
the delicate naiads. He who loved the birds of the 
air which nestled in the trees, would not harm, even 
in thought, the dryads and nymphs. He who saw 
in the untoiling flowers a richer royalty than Solo- 
mon's, would not have scorned the airy forms of 
their spirits in men's imaginations. He who per- 
ceived in all the la^^sh glory of nature, the presence 
of perfect love, would not have chided the instinct 
which gave it a personality of perfect beauty. The 
idolatry he would not endure ; but to him the statue 
was a symbol, not an idol. 



284 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA 



No, sweet singer, it is not true that, 

" Earth outgrows the mythic fancies 
Sang beside her in her youth, 
And those debonaire romances 
Sound but dull beside the truth." 

For art is that debonaire romance in which truth is 
wedded with beauty. And that mythology was the 
great achievement of art in giving to your soul of 
" truest truth," the face of " fairest beauty." 

Thus, as the sun sinks over the mountains, and 
through a fig-tree at the entrance of the grotto, the 
red light is distilled into golden green within, you 
remember that Jesus stood here, and wish that 
the source of the Jordan were indeed in the grot- 
to, as was long supposed, that he might have 
been baptized in water flowing thence. As his 
image fades in your mind, and for the last time 
you look upon any landscape that he might have 
seen, your heart cries, even as he there might have 
cried : 

Do ye leave your rivers flowing 
All alone, O Naiades, ^ 
While youT drenched locks dry slow in 
This cold, feeble sun and breeze ? 

From the gloaming of the oak-wood 
O ye Dryads, could ye flee ? 



PANIAS. 



285 



At the rushing thunder stioke would 
No sob tremble through the tree ? 

Have- ye left the mountain places 
Oreads wild, for other tryst, 
Shall we see no sudden faces 
Strike a glory through the mist ?" 

And, at midnight, as you lie musing in your tent, 
soothed by the gurgling murmur of the streams 
that make the Jordan, thinking those unutterable 
thoughts which throng the silence of Palestine, and 
will forever look solemnly after you, when you are 
gone, like the angel with flaming sword from the 
gate of Paradise upon Adam and Eve departing ; 
then this answer fills the night, like a majestic 
wind : 

« The lonely mountains o'er 
And the resounding shore, 
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament, 
From haunted spring and dale 
Edged with poplar pale, 
The parting Genius is with sighing sent. 
With flower inwoven tresses torn, 
> The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. 

In consecrated earth, 
And on the holy hearth, 
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint, 
In urns and altars round, 
A drear and dying sound 



286 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Affrights the flamens at their service quaint, 
And the chill marble seems to sweat, 
While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. 

MIRAG. 

Pebr and Baalim 
Forsake their temples dim, 
With that twice battered God of Palestine, 
And mooned Astaroth, 
Heaven's queen, and mother both, 
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine : 
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn. 
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.' 



DAMASCUS. 



''Es Sham, Shereef: the beautiful, the blessed." 



" Ah ! if but mine had been the Painter's hand 

To express what then I saw, and add the gleam, 
The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream." 

WordsiDorth. 

'Air rather gardenny I should say." — Melvilleh Moby-Dick. 

Nor shall the garden during his pleasant distraction be termed 
otherwise than Paradise, with whose flowers he stuffs his bosom and 
decketh his turbant, shaking his head at their sweet savor." 

Mobert Withers, 1650. 
Grand Signor^s Seraglio. 



— " 0 just Fakir, with brow austere, 
Forbid me not the vine, 
On the first day poor Hafiz' clay 
Was kneaded up with wine." — 

Hafiz. Emerson'' s Ti'anslation. 

13 



1. 



THE EYE OF THE EAST. 

Out of the South blew the halcyon day. The 
sky was like a precious stone. Opals and tur- 
quoises are the earth's efforts to remember that 
glowing sky and a day so fair. 

We wound joyfully along under the snowy brow 
of Hermon. The path climbed northward over 
wide, bare hills, and the sound of running water 
filled the air. Presently we had crossed the sum- 
mit of the ridge between the valley of the Jordan 
and the plain of Damascus. The streams ran no 
longer southward, but flowed with us. Our eyes 
were fixed upon the north, our hearts upon Damas- 
cus. 

The summit of each hill anxiously gained, con- 
stantly disappointed us by revealing another. Con- 
versation flagged and died away. Each rode on 
aione. A Turk passed by with a pompous retinue, 
and in the beauty of one of his train, which not 
even the jealous fullness of a huge black silk bal- 
loon could utterly conceal, Damascus came out to 



292 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



meet us, as Venice comes to you in the first gon- 
dola. 

There was nothing in the broad, desolate land- 
scape to attract the eye or engage the mind. The 
interest of the morning was absorbed in one desire^ 
painful from its intensity, the desire of beholding 
Damascus. 

The last summit was reached. A vast plain 
stretched northward between azure lines of moun- 
tain, and a dim baud across the plains united them. 
It was the foliage that embowers Damascus. Little 
dark spots were scattered on the else treeless plain. 
They were groves, far beyond the city. They lay 
like islands in the wilderness, but like a continent 
of green reposed Damascus upon the waste. 

As we approached, the vastness became beauty 
and the vagueness form. Arcadia and Boccacio's 
garden faded in the enchantment of that vision. 
Clustering minarets and spires, as of frosted flame, 
glittered in the morning above the ambrosial dark- 
ness of endless groves and gardens. There were no 
details, only the thronging richness of infinite sug- 
gestion. It was the metropolis of romance, and 
the well-assured capital of oriental hope. Drawing 
aside distance like a veil, it challenged worship as 
it revealed its beauty. The glowing imagery of its 
description in eastern poetry paled before the reali 



THE EYE UP THE EAST. 



293 



ty. I did not wonder that the Emperor Julian 
• called it the Eye of the East, nor that the Prophet 
gazed long at it and with tears, murmuring that 
there could be but one paradise and that his must 
be in heaven — then passed on as from the only syren 
he feared. 

A forest of sparkling minarets, and the billowy 
beauty of endless foliage — that was all. 

And like weary travellers, before whom flowery 
lawns of repose glide along the plain— like princes 
who see from far the aerial spires dreaming over the 
sleeping beauty — suddenly, as if we heard the cool 
measures of Damascus fountains and scented its 
garden odors, we plunged forward through the grain 
that swayed and sang around us, and loud shouting 
the cry of the gallopping Arabs, Es sham, shereef, the 
beautiful, the blessed, we dashed upon the full run 
over the plain, nor paused until our brows were 
cooled in the groves of Damascus. 

Then we stopped, and reining up by a broken 
and greenly-mossed fountain, across which lay a bar 
of gold-dusted sunshine, in vision returned the Sep- 
tember afternoon under the grape trellises and the 
figs of the Italian lake of Orta, which whispered-, 
as a less of a greater — Damascus. 

We moved slowly on over the broken pavement, 
#' hiding the walls that enclosed the gardens. But 



294: 



THE nOWABJI IN SYRIA. 



their beauty would not be confined, and overflowed 
upon us, and arched the way, and softened it with 
strewn leaves, and enchanted tlie light into a soft, 
green brilliancy, and teemed with promise inexpres- 
sible. 

At times the low singing of unseen water thread- 
ed the air as with faint laughter, laughing all the 
poets to sweet scorn who had described Damascus. 
The fig, the alm£)nd, the rounded chestnut, the wal- 
nut, the olive — all the stately and romantic trees 
were clustered here, as if the absolute aristocracy 
of foliage was only to be found in the girdle of the 
most ancient and the most beautiful of cities. 

The path was a narrow lane winding between the 
walls that separated the groves, and crossing the 
clear-eyed brooks upon ruinous and pretty bridges. 
Across the vistas, where the light was brightest, 
passed women with water-jars upon their heads, or 
groups of shouting children, or laden camels or don- 
keys, or single figures stood in gay costumes — as if a 
generous destiny knew that only that figure in that 
spot w^as necessary to perfect satisfaction. 

The lane ended in a gate, and immediately from 
the spacious and picturesque solitude of the trees 
we were plunged into the brilliant bewilderment of 
the bazaar. Golden Sleeve spurred rapidly along, 
and we were obliged to follow at the same speed to 



THE EYE OF THE EAST. 



295 



keep him in sight. The crowd parted before us 
like a phosphorescent sea, so bright were the flow- 
ing robes. My brain reeled with the abrupt change 
from the luminous green silence of the environs to 
the twilight dimness of the bazaar, full of spicy 
odors, and gorgeous colors, and various forms, che- 
quered with the penetrant sunshine that fell in 
burning drops through rents in the overshadowing 
matting. 

There was scarcely time to see, none to think.- 
We had constantly to keep vanishing Golden Sleeve 
in sight, nor did I lose him but once, when I saw 
cheesecakes — cheesecakes in Damascus ! and won- 
dering if they were made without pepper, I was 
bending to ask Agib, who was looking intently at 
me, when I saw Leisurlie just disappearing, and 
hurried rapidly after him, lest I should be implicated 
before the Grand Vizier, as an accessory to the manu- 
facture of illegal cheesecakes. 

Dazzled and overwhelmed by this first swift glance, 
I felt that Damascus was the most eastern East we 
had reached. The sunny desert and lonely Syria 
had erased from memory the West that still lingers 
in Cairo contaminated with black hats and carriages. 
Damascus was on the way to no Christian province, 
and western trade had therefore not purged it of 
virgin picturesqueness. It was the sacred point of 



296 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



departure for the Mecca caravan, and the port of 
caravans from Bagdad. 

And when Golden Sleeve reined up and said — 

" This is the hotel." 

I responded — 

" Alla-hu-aJc-lar, (Grod is great).'* 



II. 



EXIT VEEDE GIOVANE. 

The superb Syrian calls Damascus Om-el-Donia, 
the mother of the world. Nor is the traveller's 
fealty to Damascus disloyalty to Cairo. A poet, 
who sat in a cafe, tasting sherbet and singing, over 
the gurgling water, a song, which Golden Sleeve 
interpreted, sang — " O Damascus, O pearl of the 
East." But it is a crimson-hearted carbuncle rather. 

The Damascene is the most mischievous subject 
of the empire, says the Turk. He is the most 
eastern of orientals, says the Frank. Not only, like 
other Muslim, does he guard his wife with* jealousy, 
but, with the same care, he hides the splendor of the 
house in which she lives. 

In the dim, unpaven, silent streets of Cairo, the 
high latticed house-fronts wear a picturesque charm, 
and woo you, as I have said, with more than Mus- 
lim propriety. But the paved streets, walled with 
low houses of coarse, yellow plaster, are ugly and 
forbidding in Damascus; nor is the city properly 
beautiful and characteristic, except in the bazaars, 



293 



TUE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



which are unimaginable, and in the cafes, whither 
we will presently go. 

Our own house, the hotel, was characteristic. 
The great street door opened by a narrow passage 
into a tessellated marble court, glistening with 
orange foliage, and musical with fountains. A ga- 
zelle played upon the pavements, upon which opened 
a lofty arabesqued alcove, and our own room oppo- 
site. From a marble basin upon the chequered mar- 
ble floor of our room, leaped a delicate fciiLitain, and 
three recesses were raised around it, each separated 
by curtains from the common floor, and each serving 
as a bed-chamber. 

In the court, as we entered, the Syrian sun adorn- 
ing him, and sefc in all the romance of mid-Damas- 
cus, stood Verde Giovane. 

I regarded him gratefully, although I could scarce- 
ly forgive* his scornful glance at me, when I sat, 
soaped, in the bath at Asyoot, upon the Nile. But 
Verde had so amply supplied me with the fun, the 
want of which, and that of music, are the traveller's 
great wants in the East, that I buried all feud. I 
remember — as a man the figure of the waistcoat he 
wore upon his wedding day — that smooth, round, 
English face in the Damascus sunshine, the face 
whose placidity seemed to say, " 0 East ! vainly 
you strive to surprise me. Have I not given dejeu- 



EXIT VERDE GIOVANE. 



299 



ners at Philae ; have I not gracefully dallied at Esne ; 
have I not jostled on a camel over the desert, and 
am I not now here, in very Damascus, persuaded 
that the whole business is not jolly, but slow — that 
in vain your oriental silence will aim to drown the 
sound of Bow-bells in my heart?" 

I do not remember Verde distinctly again. But 
some vague reminiscence haunts my mind, of a 
figure with a felt hat, a white cotton turban, and a 
check shooting-coat, rushing up and down the hotel 
stairs at Beyrout, apparently knocking at every 
door and shouting to the inmates — for there are no 
newspapers in Beyrout to record arrivals and de- 
partures — " Grood-by, Smith ; good-by, Jones. I'm 
just off for Aleppo." 

Images of gay cavaliers bounding from their la- 
dies' bowers rose in my mind, I remember, as I 
heard those farewells ; and I leaned, romantic, from 
the balcony — to see the felt hat, and white turban, 
and check apparel, surmounting a jaded beast, and 
following a train of pack-horses slowly around the 
corner. 

And so with oriental slowness, if not stateliness, 
the good little Verde Griovane rode out of Beyrout, 
and out of history. 



III. 

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 

Are you disappointed as you thread these streets, 
by these repulsive waHs ? Do you tremble lest the 
dream of Damascus be dissolved by Damascus it- 
self? 

But you have already learned, by pleasant ex- 
perience, that the clumsy, black, forbidding bal- 
loons, which passed you in those Cairene streets, 
enveloped Cairene wives, and were thus only the 
coarse rind of Hesperidian fruit. Such, too, are the 
Damascus houses. 

0 little faith! each Damascus house is a para- 
dise The streets know only the exterior of the 
outer walls, and forbid to the passenger even the 
suspicion of beauty. Happily for us and for you, 
there is a Jew in Damascus — and may his tribe in- 
crease — who is a St. Peter, and holds the keys of 
many heavens. 

He led us to the true House Beautiful, a dream 
palace, one of those which we frequent, when we 
are children, with caliphs and ladies. Such a dwell- 



THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 



301 



mg as you must needs fancy when you look through 
Lane's illustrated Arabian Nights, as through the 
mind of an Arabian poet, arabesqued with dreamy 
fancies — such a pavilion as Tennyson has built in 
music for Haroun El Eashid. 

We turned suddenly from the unpromising street 
into a court, in whose centre played a fountain, sur- 
rounded with orange-trees, and from one side of which 
ascended a lofty staircase to a gallery overlooking 
the court. The orange-trees threw rich mosaics of 
shadow upon the pavement, and groups of men sat 
around, smoking tranquilly, as if they were only 
part of the furniture of the scene. Among thein 
were Druse emirs from the Lebanon : princes not 
princely enough to be admitted into the inner de- 
lights. 

" It is a perfected Seville," said Leisurlie, as we 
passed on and entered the inner court. 

There, for the first time, I felt the just instinct 
of the Prophet in painting his Paradise from the 
materials furnished by the genius which he and 
the Easterns knew. The scene was a poem set 
to music. The light of the opaline day streamed 
into the spacious court as into a vase worthy 
of it. A large marble reservoir occupied the cen- 
tre of the space, into which fountains of fairy de- 
vice poured humming rills of water. The pave- 



302 THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



ment was tessellated marble, polished to a glow. 
Huge pots of flowers stood near the walls, that 
blazed with all the brilliancy of positive color, and 
glistening, trailing, and blossoming plants were 
ranged along the marble-margined fountain. Roses, 
lemons, and orange-trees, grouped their foliage, 
clustered their flowers, and perfumed the sun 

The light was not a glare, but a thick, odorous 
luminousness dashed with the cool dusk of shadov/s 
from the trees. Gazelles stood and ran in the court, 
filling the sunny bliss with the most delicate grace 
of life ; and, among the fragrant trees, birds sang — 
why not the bul-bul, dying a melodious rose-death 
to crown our joy? 

From the end of the court a broad, lofty staii- 
case, with elabora-tely wrought balusters, ascended 
to a galleried recess, before which hung a vine of 
passion-flowers in blossom, transfigured in light, a 
tapestry of Paradise, and touching the pavement 
below, it trailed languidly upon the glossy mar- 
ble. 

Slightly raised from the level of the court, and 
entirely open to it, were alcoves loftily-arched, car- 
peted, and divanned with luxurious stuffs. The 
sides and ceilings of the alcoves were painted in 
dreamy arabesque. There are two kinds of ara- 
besque in these houses— -one is pannelled, carved in 



THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. W6 

wood, and so elaborately gilded that the effect is of 
a tapestry of the richest camel's hair shawls. The 
other is flat painting — the modern method — gay- 
er and brighter, but not so deeply rich and deli- 
cate. The former usually surrounds the base of 
the alcove or apartment. But the latter haunts 
the depths of the upper walls and the ceiling with 
suggestions as subtle as the melody of Eastern 
verse. 

The rooms opened into the largest alcove. They 
were quite empty and resembled grottoes, with 
their marble pavements, and mosaics of colored 
marble in the wall, and at the farther end a raised 
dais, spread with lounges where, under the ara- 
besques, and in the sound of the falling water, the 
women lay in voluptuous repose, crusted with jew- 
els and completing the Paradise. 



IV. 



HOURIS. 

*' The night shall be filled with music. 
And the cares that infest the day- 
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away." 

Such beautiful women we saw. 

Not, of course, the Muslim wives, but Hebrews 
whose beauty is more imperial. 

Many of the finest houses in Damascus are those 
of Jews, who cling there as they do everywhere 
else, although they occasionally suffer persecutions 
of relentless severity. There are about five thou 
sanclJewsin Damascus, and they are often the chief 
financial officers of the Turkish government. They 
live in a quarter of the city by themselves, and as 
we left the shabby street and entered the courts of 
their houses, those chapters of old romance which 
relate the hidden luxury of the Hebrews, returned 
to my mind and were justified. 

The best of these houses have two courts — three 
alcoves opening upon the inner one. Their roman- 
tic beauty can hardly be imparted by any descrip- . 



HOURIS 



305 



lion, nor do I know any pictures which fairly repre- 
sent it. The Syrian light has not yet been caught 
upon the palette, and without that, the gorgeous- 
ness of the impression is lost. 

These fountained and foliaged interiors, hushed in 
the warm blue silence of that sky, forever suggest 
a luxurious and poetic life. They suggest it so ab- 
solutely and strongly, that a child of the West con- 
templates them, fascinated, indeed, but frightened, as 
if it were wrong to follow, even in fancy, the out- 
line they draw upon the possibilities of life. Dream- 
ing by the singing waters, or reclining upon the 
sumptuous divans in the alcoves, the most Christian 
of Howadji, as he awaits the Houris, hears his heart 
repeating the mournful words of the Prophet— 
*' There can be but One Paradise, and mine must not 
be here !" 

Yet, as we lay, those May mornings, watching the 
gazelles, a year's life in Damascus promised the 
completest romance that the experience of this 
time could afford. 

There would be no society — for technical " socie- 
ty" is unknown in the East — and no impulse from 
the magnetic spirit of the age." But all the rest 
could be supplied. 

You would hear the hum of the West dying 
away over the Mediterranean, into an incredible 



30G 



THE HOWADjl IN SYKIA. 



echo. Its remermbered forms would glide, phan- 
toms, across the luxurious repose of existence. Zeno 
would dwindle into a myth, modern times into a 
dream, and the fancied life of Epicurus would be 
the shadow of your own. Had Epicurus no reason ? 
Was the legend of the lotus-eaters all a fable ? Is 
the unimaginable imagery of opium-dreams not 
worth the seeing ? 

— Self-indulgent, wasteful, selfish, coward before 
the tyrannous realities of life — these are the re- 
proaches that would disturb your dream. 

Yet would I still exhort him who sincerely loves 
the lotus and thrives upon it — for such there are — 
to dream that year in Damascus. For would he 
then return, and paint that year for us, the dream 
would be justified and celebrated in pictures and 
songs. 

Let Zeno frown. Philosophy, common sense, 
and resignation, are but synonyms of submission to 
the inevitable. I dream my dream. Men whose 
hearts are broken, and whose faith falters, discover 
that life is a warfare, and chide the boy for loitering 
along the sea-shore, and loving the stars. 

But leave him, inexorable elders, in the sweet en- 
tanglement of the " trailing clouds of glory" with 
which he comes into the world. Have no fear that 
they will remain and dim his sight. Those morning 



HOURIS. 



307 



vapors fade away — you have learned it. And they 
will leave him chilled, philosophical, and resigned, in 
" the light of common day" — you have proved it. But 
do not starve him to-day, because he will have no 
dinner to-morrow. Like a poor country lad who 
must go out to service in the dim and treacherous 
city, you will not suffer him to follow the water- 
courses, and know the flowers, and the sky, and the 
mountain landscape, in his first few years, lest their 
sublime memory should seduce him from his work, 
or sadden him in its doing. But the profoundest 
thinkers of you all, have discovered that an inscru- 
table sadness is the widest horizon of life, and the 
longing eye is more sympathetic with nature, than 
the shallow stare of practical scepticism of truth 
and beauty. 

But while we muse, the ladies have entered the 
court — the family of a Jewish merchant, friend of 
our St. Peter — a mother and three daughters. 

The mother is fat, and covered with brocades and 
cloths of gold, with bracelets, and necklaces, and 
rings, and her head is actually crusted with opals, 
pearls, rubies, carbuncles, and amethysts. She looks, 
as she stands in the sun, and conscious of the splen- 
dor of her appearance, as if she had just emerged 
from the bazaars, in which every merchant had 
thrown his choicest treasures at her as she passed. 



308 



THE HOWADJI IN STEIA. 



There is neither grace nor taste in her appearance. 
It is only an accumulation of riches in every kind, 
but each so genuine and magnificent, that the eye 
is satisfied. 

She is not handsome, but her daughters are. 
They are tall and willowy, and stand among the 
oranges and oleanders, looking gravely at us. They 
have wreaths of pearls, and embroidered vests, and 
thick skirts heavy with richness, and they all walk 
upon pattens four or five inches high, of ebony 
inlaid with pearl, so that, in moving, they stalk 
about the court like giraffes imperfectly humanized. 
Their hair is densely black, and is braided in mas- 
sive folds, studded with gems. Their eyebrows 
are shaved, and a smooth black arch of kohl 
supplies their places, and helps to unhumanize 
them. They are beautiful without the effect of 
beauty. The dark eyes are soft and curious, but 
have no lambent light of sympathy or intelligence. 
I should as soon undertake conversation with the 
black marble Venus, as with these silent and stately 
figures ; and it is hard to bring my mind to the 
conception of their total ignorance and inexperi- 
ence. 

— The scene was like a Sultan's slave-market, and 
on the whole, rather sadder than my remembrance 
of a slave-merchant's house in Cairo. He had just 



HOURIS. 



309 



received several Abyssinian girls for sale. They 
stood, coarsely clad, and clustering together, in the 
darkest corner of the court — a group of olive-skin- 
ned children, who laughed at the strangers, and 
chatted among themselves, evidently hoping to be 
bought, and to taste the incomprehensible life of 
Christian Hovv^adji. 

The Damascene ladies withdrew after we had ex- 
changed some words with the placid mamma, and 
presently, we saw them hurrying along the gallery 
above, chattering and laughing, like the Abyssinians, 
and looking down upon us as we retired, with the 
curiosity of children. 

And, as we retired, the painful impression of their 
utterly vacant life was relieved by that girlish 
laughter. 



BAZAARS. 



" Black spirits and white, 
Blue spirits and gray, 

Mingle, mingle, mingle." 

Christians and Saracens agree in reprobating the 
black hat. But the Damascenes declare open war 
against it. In 1432, Bertrandon de la Brocquiere 
entered the city with a " broad beaver hat," which 
was incontinently knocked off his head. Naturally, 
his first movement was " to lift my fist," but wis- 
dom held his hand, and he desisted, content to re- 
venge himself by the questional inference that it 
was " a wicked race." 

But if it be " wicked" to malign the black hat, 
who shall be justified ? 

This was only a gentle illustration of the bitter 
hatred of Christians and all infidels, cherished by 
the Damascenes, who are the most orthodox of 
Muslim. Indeed, it is only within twenty years 
that an accredited English representative could 
reside in Damascus, and he maintains an imposing 
state. At present, some hundred European tourists 



BAZAAES. • Sn 

visit the city yearly, and the devout faithful find 
reasons for toleration in infidel gold, which they 
never found in aigument. 

Here, too, as everywhere in Syria, Ibrahim Pa- 
cha has been our ally. He permitted infidels to ride 
horses through the streets. 

" 0 Allah !" exclaimed the religious Damascenes, 
who are termed by the Turks Shami-Shoumi — cursed 
rascals. Your highness suffers Christians to sit 
as high as the faithful." 

" No, my friends," responded Ibrahim, " you shall 
ride dromedaries, which will put you much above 
them." 

We went into the bazaars to encounter these ene- 
mies of the black hat, and ex-officio riders of drome- 
daries. We had a glimpse of their beauty as we 
entered the city. But Eastern life is delightful in 
detail. It is a mosaic to be closely studied. 

You enter, and the murmurous silence blends 
pleasantly with the luminous dimness of the place. 
The matting overhead, torn and hanging in strips, 
along which, gilding them in passing, the sun slides 
into the interior, is a heavy tapestry. The scene is 
a perpetual fair, not precisely like Greenwich fair, 
or that of the American Institute, but such as you 
frequent in Arabian stories. 

Bedoueen glide spectrally along, with wild roving 



312 ' THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

eyes, like startled deer. Insane dervishes and san- 
tons meditate the propriety of braining the infidel 
Howadji. Shekhs from distant Asia, pompous 
effendi from Constantinople, Bagdad traders, cun- 
ning-eyed Armenian merchants meet and mingle, 
and many of our old friends, the grizzly-bearded, 
red-eyed fire-worshippers, somnolently curled among 
their goods, eye us, through the smoke they emit, 
as perfect specimens of the proper sacrifice they 
owe their deity. All strange forms jostle and crowd 
in passing, except those which are familiar ; and 
children, more beautiful than any in the East, play 
in the living mazes of the crowd. 

Shopping goes actively on. The merchant, with- 
out uncrossing his legs, exhibits his silks and coarse 
cottons to the long draped and veiled figures that 
group picturesquely about his niche. Your eye 
seizes the bright effect of all the gay goods as you 
saunter on. Here a merchant lays by his chi- 
bouque, and drinks from a carved glass sweet liquorice 
water, cooled with snow from Lebanon. Here one 
closes his niche and shuflBies off to the mosque, follow- 
ed by his boy slave with the chibouque. Here 
another rises, and bows, and falls, kissing the floor, 
and muttering the noon prayer. Everywhere there 
is intense but languid life. 

The bazaars are separated into kinds. That of 



BAZAARS. 



313 



the jewellers in enclosed, and you see the Jews, 
swarthy and keen-eyed servants of Mammon, busily 
at work. Precious stones miserably, set, and hands- 
full of pearls, opals, and turquoises are quietly pre- 
sented to your inspection. There is no eagerness 
of traffic. A boy tranquilly hands you a ring, and 
another, when you have looked at the first. You 
say " no, and he retires. 

Or you pause over a clumsy silver ring, with an 
Arabic inscription upon the flint set in it. Golden 
Sleeve ascertains that it is the cypher of Hafiz. You 
reflect that it is silver, which is the orthodox metal, 
the Prophet having forbidden gold. You place it 
upon your finger with the stone upon the inside; 
for so the Prophet wore his upon the fore-finger, 
that he might avoid ostentation. It is a quaint, 
characteristic, oriental signet-ring. Hafiz is a com- 
mon name, it is probably that of the jeweller who 
owns the ring. But you have other associations 
with the name, and as you remember the Persian 
poet, you suffer it to remain upon your finger, and 
pay the jeweller a few piastres. You do not dream 
that it is enchanted. You do not know that you 
have bought Aladdin's lamp, and as a rub of that 
evoked omnipotent spirits, so a glance at your ring, 
when Damascus has become a dream, will restore 

you again to the dim bazaar, and the soft eyes of 
14- 



314 



THE HOWADJI IN STRIA. 



the children that watch you curiously as you hesitate, 
and to the sweet inspiration of Syria. 

You pass on into the quarter where the pattens 
are made, inlaid with pearl, such as you remarked 
upon the feet of the kohl-eyebrowed houris. Into 
the shoemakers, where the brilliant leathers justify 
better poetry than Hans Sach's interminable rhymes 
though here is only their music, not their moral. 
You climb crumbling steps, and emerge from dark- 
ness upon the top of the bazaar, on a ledge of a 
Roman ruin, and look dovv^n into the sunny green- 
ness of the great mosque, which you cannot more 
nearly approach. Then down, and by all the beau- 
tiful fabrics of the land, hung with the tin foiled 
letters that surround pieces of English prints, and 
which the color-loving eye of the oriental seizes as 
an ornament for his own wares, you pass into the 
region of drugs and apothecaries, and feel that you 
are about visiting that Persian doctor in Mecca who 
dealt in nothing but miraculous balsams and infal- 
lible elixirs, whose potions v/ere all sweet and agree- 
able, and the musk and aloe-wood which he burned, 
diffused a delicious odor through the shop. Surely 
he was court-physician to Zobeide. 

Golden Sleeve pauses before an old figure curled 
among the bottles and lost in reverie, saturated, it 
seems, with opium, and dreaming its dreams. This 



BAZAAKS. 



315 



is Zobeide's doctor. He had evidently the elixir of 
life among those sweet potions, and has deeply 
drunk. Life he has preserved ; but little else that 
is human remains, except the love that is stronger 
than life. For, as he opens his vague eyes and be 
holds us, they kindle v^ith an inward fire, as if they 
looked upon the philosopher's stone. That stone 
is in our purses ; the old magician knows it, and he 
knows the charm to educe it. 

He opens a jar, and a dreamy odor penetrates our 
brains. It is distilled of flowers culled from the 
gardens of the Ganges : or is this delicate perfume 
preferable — this zatta, loved of poets and houris, 
which came to the doctor's grandfather from Bag- 
dad? 

Attar of roses did Golden Sleeve suggest ? Here 
is the essence of that divinest distillation of the very 
heart of summer. But, 0 opulent Howadji! no 
thin, pale, Constantinople perfume is this, but the 
viscous richness of Indian roses. As many wide 
acres of bloom v^ent to this jar as to any lyric of 
Hafiz. It lies as molten gold in the quaint glass 
vase. The magician holds it toward the Syrian 
sun, and the shadow of a smile darkens over his 
withered features. Then, drop by drop, as if he 
poured the last honey that should ever be hived 
from Ilymettus, he suffer it to exude into the little 



816 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



vials. They are closely stopped, and sealed, and 
wrapped in cotton. And some wintry Christmas 
in the West the Howadji shall offer to a fairer than 
Zobeide those more than drops of diamond. 

Nor this alone — ^but the cunning of Arabian art 
has sucked the secret of their sweetness from tea 
and coffee, from all the wild herbs of Syria, and 
from amber. In those small jars is stored the rich 
result of endless series of that summer luxuriance 
you saw in the vale of Zabulon. Sandal-wood ta 
burn upon your nargileh, mystic bits to lay upon 
your tongue, so that the startled Bedoueen, as you 
pass in the bazaar, and breathe upon him in passing, 
dreams that you came from paradise, and have been 
kissed by houris. 

Was it not the magic to draw from your purse 
the philosopher's stone ? The court-phj^sician of 
Zobeide, relapsing into reverie, smiles vaguely as 
he says salaam ; as if the advantage were his — as if. 
you were not bearing away with you in those odors 
the triumphs of the rarest alchemy. 

Breathing fragrance, you enter a khan opening 
upon the bazaar, that of Assad Pacha, a stately and 
beautiful building, consisting of a lofty domed court, 
the dome supported by piers, with a gallery running 
quite around it. Private rooms for the choicest 
goods open out of the gallery. The court is full of 



BAZAAES. 



317 



various merchandise, and merchants from every 
region sit by their goods, and smoke placidly as 
they negotiate. 

But we have received visits in our hotel from an 
Armenian merchant, young and comely — why not 
Khadra's cousin ? — and he brought with him silks and 
stuffs at which all that was feminine in our natures 
swelled with delight. Tempted by his odors, we 
have come to this garden. The room is small and 
square, and rough-plastered. Upon the fl/)or are 
strewn long deep boxes, and the comely young Ar 
menian, in a flowing dark dress, reveals his treasures. 

Scarfs, shawls, stuffs for dresses, morning-gowns 
and vests, handkerchiefs, sashes, purses, and tobacco- 
bags are heaped in rich profusion. They are of the 
true eastern richness, and in the true eastern man- 
ner they rely upon that richness for their effect, and 
not upon their intrinsic tastefalness. The figures 
of the embroideries, for instance, are not gracefully 
designed, but the superb material suffices. They 
imply that there are none but beautiful women in 
the world, and that all women are brunettes. As 
the quiet merchant unfolds them, they have the 
mysterious charm of recalling all the beautiful bru- 
nettes who have reigned, Zenobias, and Queens of 
Sheba, and Cleopatras, in the ruined realm of your 
past life. 



31S 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



But, Northerners and Westerners, we remember 
another beauty. We remember Palma Vechio's 
golden-haired daughter, and the Venetian pictures, 
and the stories of angels with sunny locks, and the 
radiant Preziosa. The astute Armenian knows our 
thoughts. From the beginning was not the orien- 
tal merchant a magician? 

For while we sit smoking and delighted, the mer- 
chant, no less wily than the court-physician of 
Zobeide, opens the last box of all, and gradually un- 
folds the most beautiful garment the Howadji have 
ever seen. The coronation robes of emperors and 
kings, the most sumptuous costumes at court-festi- 
vals, all the elaboration of western genius in the 
material and in the making of dresses, pale and 
disappear before the simple magnificence of this 
robe. 

It is a bournouse or oriental cloak, made of cam- 
el's hair and cloth of gold. The material secures 
that rich stiffness essential in a superb mantle, and 
the color is an azure turquoise, exquisite beyond 
words. The sleeves are cloth of gold, and the 
edges are wrought in gold, but with the most regal 
taste. It is the only object purely tasteful that we 
have seen. Nor is it of that safety of taste, which 
loves dark carriages and neutral tints in dress, but 
magnificent and imperial, like that of Rachel when 



B AZAAES. 



319 



she plays Thisbe, and nets her head with Venetian 
sequins. If the rest imply that all women are beau- 
tiful and brunettes, this proclaims the one superb 
blonde, queen of them all. 

" Take that, Leisurlie, it was intended from the 
beginning of the world for an English beauty." 

"Oh! Icooltooluk! there is not a woman in Eng- 
land who could wear it." 

Through the dewy distances of memory, as you 
muse in the dim chamber upon all who might 
worthily wear that garment, passes a figure perfect 
as morning, crowned with youth, and robed in 
grace, for whose image Alpine snows were purer 
and Italian skies more soft. But even while you 
muse it passes slowly away out of the golden gates 
of possibility into the wide impossible. 

As we stroll leisurely homeward, it is early after- 
noon. But the shops are closed — strange silence 
and desertion reign in the bazaars — a few dark tur- 
banned Christians and Jews yet linger, and a few 
children play. 

" They are gone to the cafes and gardens," says 
Golden Sleeve. 

— And we follow them. 



VI, 



CAFES. 

Not only the interiors and the bazaars bewilder 
you in Damascus. 

Everywhere in the humming gush of fountains, 
you hear the low musical laughter of Undine. Thus, 
through the heart of the city, the cool cedars of 
Lebanon sing their shade. The flashing jets in the 
silent and sunny courts, like winks of that glancing 
spirit, soothe your mind long before you suspect the 
reason. In the bazaars and chief streets that laugh 
is stifled, but when you turn aside, just outside the 
bazaars, and pass beyond the gates, you are on the 
banks of the Abana and Pharpar — rivers of Damas- 
cus. 

In this realm of water, are the cafes, of which, 
sipping a petit verre in the Algerine cafe, upon the 
Parisian Boulevards and looking at the Arab women 
there, some Howadji have vaguely dreamed. But 
nothing in civilized cities reminds you of these re- 
sorts. They are open spaces upon the banks of the 
streams, shielded by heavy foliaged trees, from the 



CAFES. 



321 



sun, and secluded entirely from any noise but that 
of rushing water. 

The finest cafe is entered through a large room, 
whose walls are striped in the usual manner, and 
which is furnished with shabby stools, and multi- 
tudes of nargilehs, chibouques, and glass cups for 
sherbet and coffee. It opens into a cool, green se- 
clusion, through which shoots a flashing stream, 
crossed by a little bridge. 

No cafe in the world, elsewhere, can offer a luxu- 
ry so exquisite. In the hot day it proffers coolness 
and repose. We sit upon the little bridge, and 
through the massive foliage around us, catch gleams 
of the color upon the nearest walls. The passion- 
ate sun cannot enter unrestrained, but he dashes 
his splendor against the trees, and they distil it in 
flickering drops of intense brightness upon the 
smooth, hard, black ground. We have his beauty 
but not his blaze. Supreme luxury ! Even the 
proud sun shall help to cool us by the vivid contrast 
of the flecks of his light, with the mellow shadow 
in which we sit. 

Beneath leaps the swiffc river, gurgling gladness 
as it shoots, like a joyful boy in running. It sweeps 
forever around an old greened wall below. It is 
forever overhung by blossoming figs, and waving 
vines and almonds, which bower it as it passes, 



322 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



far overleaning to hear its forest tales of Lebanon. 
Around ns sit figures clad in rainbow brilliance, 
which, in placing there, nature has preceded art 
and satisfied imagination. We sip sherbet of roses 
or smooth Mocha coffee. 

— Nera! It is the fountained kiosk of Damas- 
cus. — 

Yet these resorts, with all their shabby stools and 
coarse matting, convey a finer sense of luxury than 
any similar attempt in western life. In view of the 
purpose desired, these cafes are the triumph of art, 
although nothing can be simpler and ruder than the 
whole structure. They are the broadest and most 
obvious strokes in the adaptation of natural advan- 
tages to the greatest enjoyment. Thu streams are 
as wild as mountain brooks, the trees as untrim- 
med as in the forest, yet the combination satis- 
fies the strongest desire of a hot climate — coolness 
and repose. These resorts are the country serving 
the city, but not emasculated of its original charac- 
ter. It serves the city as the negro slave clad in his 
native costume, in bright trinkets and with braided 
iiair, serves the citizen. As London in its vast parks 
secures for itself the crown of city luxury, namel}^ 
the unchanged aspect of fields and woods, so that 
awakening upon Regent's Park, you shall seem, in 
the lowing and tranquil grazing of cattle, and in 



CAFES. 



323 



the singing of birds in the morning silence, to be a 
hundred miles from men ; so is it here, except that 
here is the golden atmosphere of romance and of 
the natural picturesque. But the London parks are 
only pastoral landscapes hung upon the city walls. 
The cafes of Damascus are passionate poems. It 
is the difference between a mild-eyed milkmaid and 
the swart magnificence of Zenobia. 

The best western suggestions of these Damascus 
delights are those German gardens, where you sit 
smoking and sipping in pleasant arbors, listening to 
pleasant music, as at Nuremberg, under the pictur- 
esque old walls. But here again is all the difference 
between Albrecht Diirer and Hafiz. There is a mark- 
ed vein of prose in everything German. The cafes 
of Damascus are pure poetry. 

Damascus in this regard makes Pans poor. The 
most brilliant cafes of the Boulevards are only ro- 
coco, and artificial, measured by this natural art. 
They are elaborated d merveille. But the place it- 
self differs from the Damascene type not less than 
the pretty grisette, in her piquant perfection of 
French attire, differs from the loosely robed, and 
jewelled, and golden-complexioned Syrian woman, 
not less than the clarified French colFee differs from 
the thick richness of Mocha. You sit upon the 
broad, gay street in Paris eating ices thicker and 



324 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



richer than those of the East, which are thin and 
watery like snow, watching the gaudy equipages, 
the staring parvenu houses, the hats, coats, bonnets 
and dresses — all the bright tinsel of Parisian life — = 
and over your eager mind, like a lull in a gusty day, 
steals the vision of Damascus, with the silent cool- 
ness of green shadows, and the gurgling coolness of 
rushing streams. 

Art, in oriental luxury, is only the hint of nature 
broadly developed. The luxury of Paris is the per- 
fection of artificiality. Nature is as much banished 
from it as simple instincts and natural feeling from 
Parisian society. From the Boulevards your eyes 
rise to the calm blue sky, with wonder and insatiable 
longing. It hangs over the city like the long-suffer- 
ing grace of God over human sin. 

But as we sit enchanted by the gushing waters of 
Damascus, and anticipate Paris, as full-hearted boys 
the heartlessness of manhood, and long for music, 
the instinctive complement of such luxury, even as 
the boy sings when he is happiest, we are made 
aware, in the shrill shriek and discord of the Arabian 
instruments and voices, of the imperfection of orien- 
tal luxury. It is fragmentary, and not complete. 
The love of nature in an oriental, is rather an animal 
instinct than a spiritual appreciation. Hence the 
universal absence of what we call taste, which does 



CAFES. 



325 



not imply that the universal appearance of richness 
in the East is positively tasteless, but simply un- 
worked into genuine artistic results. The effect is 
is often that of the finest art. Bat the difference, as 
I said, is that of a palette covered with rich pig- 
ments and a brilliant picture. Yet remember how 
much more valuable for subtle suggestion is Titian's 
palette than most pictures that were ever painted. 

This luxury is fragmentary and incomplete. A 
Pacha clad in the costliest robes, and smoking a 
gemmed chibouque, receives you in a coarsely-plas- 
tered chamber, where you recline upon cushions 
which no Parisian salon possesses. Or in these fine 
Damascus houses, between the ceiling wrought in 
dream-arabesques, and the delicate point-lace-like 
work of the walls, a broad strip of dingy plaster in- 
tervenes, broken with irregular, shapeless windows. 
Nor have the houses the slightest air of home, or 
domestic comfort. 

It is the general character of magnificence, and 
the occasional pursuit of details into the most subtle 
and aerial perfection, which gives the tone to your 
impression. It is the . splendor of a mine, streaked 
with earth, but in which some happy touch has 
wrought certain points into marvellous beauty — the 
wealth of a quarry, in which occasional genius has 
carved single blocks into more than Grecian grace. 



VII. 

UNCLE KUHLEBORN. 

So, meditating luxury, and leaving the bubbling 
waters, we stroll into the city, confessing with the 
Turkish poet, that green trees, and flowing waters, 
and beautiful faces combined, are an antidote against 
melancholy. 

Pausing at a small door, we enter the bath. For, 
as becomes a city so affluent in water, the baths of 
Damascus are the finest in the East, and so fantastic 
is the spectacle of their life, that you must needs 
fancy them temples of Undine's uncle Kiihleborn. 

The lofty hall which we enter is lighted through 
a dome, and is paved with varied marbles. Three 
deep alcoves are raised above the court, in the sides 
of the hall, and in the centre of the pavement is a 
fountain, upon whose margin stand clusters of nargi- 
lehs, wreathed with their serpentine tubes. A mat 
is spread for us in the most spacious alcove. A boy 
holds a fine linen veil before us while we disrobe, 
and instantly an attendant girds us with linen over 
the shoulders and around the loins, and a flat turban 



UNCLE KUHLEBOEN. 



327 



of the same is pressed upon our heads. Then care- 
fully treading in clumsy wooden pattens, which 
slide upon the polished floor, we enter a small 
room. 

It is misty with steam, and warm, entirely bare, 
and of smooth marble walls and floor. We pass 
into another of the same kind, hotter and more 
misty, and a group of parboiled spectres regard us 
languidly as we advance. 

" Then we emerge in a long oblong hall, reeking 
with moist heat, in which we gasp and stare at the 
figures — some steeped to the neck in a cauldron of 
steaming water, their shaven heads floating, like 
livid pipkins, upon the surface — some lying at full 
naked length upon the floor, in a torpor of sensual 
satisfaction — some sitting meekly upright upon lit- 
tle stools, and streaming with soap-suds, while nude 
official individuals with a linen fig-leaf, rush rapidly 
about with a black horse-hair mitten upon the right 
hand, making occasional sallies upon the spectres, 
and apparently flaying them with the rough hand 
of hair. 

These spectres are all shaven, and profoundly 
solemn. They undergo parboiling, boiling, soap- 
ing, and flaying, with the melancholy seriousness 
of western gentlemen dancing at a ball, heroically 
resigned to happiness. 



328 



THE HOVn^ADJI IN STKIk. 



But we may not pause. Persuasive hands are 
urging us toward the cauldron. Yv^e are suddenly 
denuded, and hover affrighted on the very verge of 
the steaming abyss. But we will not be pipkins. 
We will not join that host of shaven Saracens, who 
look at us from the cauldron as lifelessly — for les ex- 
tremes se touchent — as the victims in the ice glared 
upon Dante and his guide. We remember Hylas 
with an exquisite shudder. We gasp " la (no, 
no)," with an emphasis that makes us the focus of " 
all the languid glances in the misty limbo. 

Then the persuasive hands urge us toward a door 
opening into a small marble chamber. A fountain 
gushes hot water at the side, a linen is suspended 
over the door, and we are removed from the view 
of the pipkins. The thick hot air is absorbed at 
every pore, and the senses are soothed as with 
opium fumes. We pant, resistless, sitting upon 
the floor, streaming with perspiration. Beyond, 
struggling, we see a hairy-handed spectre enter 
under the linen of the doorway. He rubs his 
finger upon our naked bodies, as a barber rubs the 
chin he is about shaving. The hairy-handed says, 
" Tdih, tdih (good, good)," and lays the Howadji 
flat upon his back. 

Sitting by his side, he dips the hair-glove into 
the running water, and rubs with a smooth, steady 



UNCLE KUHLEBORN. 



329 



firmness the inside of the infidel arm. Not a spot 
escapes. You muse of almonds in the process of 
blanching, and are thus admitted to mysterious sym- 
pathies. You are no longer panting and oppressed. 
You respire heat and mist at every pore, and per- 
ceive yourself of the consistency of honey. The 
hairy-handed v^hispers coaxingly, as you sink more 
deeply in the sense of liquefaction, " Howadji, 
bMcksheesh.^^ You look at him with the languid 
solemnity of the pipkins in the cauldron, but are 
sure that you would only gurgle and bubble, should 
you attempt to speak. 

The hairy-handed turns you like a log, and like 
the statue of great Ramses at Memphis lying with 
its face in the mud, so lies the happy Howadji with 
his nose upon the wet marble floor, torpid with 
satisfaction, while his back is peeled in the same 
skillful manner. 

The ceremony of the glove is finished, and you 
lie a moment as if the vague, warm mist had pene- 
trated your mind. A stream of clear hot water is 
poured over you, and pleasure trickles through 
your very soul. 

Then lo ! the hairy-handed, smiling upon you as 
you lie, and whispering, " Buchheesh, Howadji,'''' 
steps with his naked feet upon your spine, and 
stands on your body between your shoulders. But 



330 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



he has scarcely touched the back, than he slides off 
down the ribs, his large moist feet clinging to your 
back. So, sliding and slipping, and kneading your 
body, he advances toward the feet, accumulating in 
your misty mind new ideas of luxury, and revealing 
to your apprehension the significance of the Arabic 
word "/ae/'," which implies a surfeit of sensual de- 
light. He steps off and leaves you lying, and there 
you would willingly lie forever, but that he returns 
with a pan of soap and a mass of fibres of the 
palm-tree — the oriental sponge. 

The next moment you are smeared in suds, from 
the neck to the heels, and it is rubbed in with a 
vigor that makes you no longer Ramses in the mud 
of Memphis, but a Grrecian wrestler, anointed and 
oiled with suppleness. He rolls you over, and your 
corporeal unctuation is completed. 

Then hairy-hand sits you upright upon the floor, 
like the mild-eyed lotus-eaters, who sit, sudded, 
upon stools in the vicinity of the pipkins, and sud- 
denly the soap is planted in your hair, and you are 
strangling in the suds that stream over your face. 
You cannot speak or gasp ; for the hairy-hand mer- 
cilessly rubs along your face up and down, as if you 
were merely Marsyas ; and as you sit half-terrified, 
and with a ghostly reverie of anger at your heart — 
for positive emotions are long since melted — you 



UNCLE KUHLEBORN. 



331 



perceive a burning stream of water flowing over 
you, and washing soap and rage away. Hairy-hand 
deluges you with the hot water which he bails out 
of the fountain with the pan that held the soap. 
Then folds his hands meekly to signify that you 
are done, and whispers gently, " Buclcsheesh^ How- 

You rise and enter the Sudarium beyond. No 
unbelieving Verde Giovane is there to scoff ; but 
another spectre approaches with razor and scissors. 
You tremble lest you be too much done to resist 
the shaving process, lest you re-enter the world 
utterly bald as a Saracen. But a glance at the 
pipkins nerves your heart. Feebly this time, and 
truly with liquid accents, you murmur, "/a, /a," 
and the spectre with razors vanishes into the mist 
with a scornful smile. You pass into the next 
chamber, and clean linens are thrown around you 
as when you entered, and you stumble along upon 
the clumsy pattens out into the large hall. 

You reel into the alcove and stretch yourself at 
length upon the mattress covered with gold-fringed 
linen. A boy lays other linen over you, skillfully 
flapping a heavenly coolness as he lets it fall. Your 
eyes close in dreamy languor. Something smooth 
touches your lips ; it is the amber mouth of a nar- 
gileh tube, upon whose vase, filled with tobacco 



332 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



from Shiraz, a bit of aloes is burning. It is the 
same boy, who kneels and hands it to your lips, 
and offers in the other hand, a cup of orange sher- 
bet. 

You sip and inhale, and a few moments, restful 
as a year to the sleeping princess, pass. Then you 
are gently raised. All your drapery is changed, and 
fresh, fair linen is spread over you again, with the 
same exquisite coolness in falling. 

Your eyes wander in reverie around the hall. In 
one alcove, lie a pair of Sybarit-es like yourself, also 
dreamily regarding you, and your glances meet and 
mingle, like light vapors in the air. Another is pray- 
ing — bending, and kissing, and muttering, others 
are robing and disrobing, entering or going out. 
The officials move as quietly as shadows, and per- 
fect silence reigns under the dome, broken only and 
deepened by the plash of the fountains. Clouds of 
azure smoke wreathe away, and the faint bubbling 
of the water in the nargileh hums soothingly through 
the space. By reason of the windows in the dome, 
the bath is lighter than the bazaar, and you watch 
through grated windows opening upon the bazaar, 
the passers in that dim region, the camels, the 
horses gayly caparisoned, the Bedoueens, and sak- 
kas, and bright-robed merchants, who all go by like 
phantoms. One of the camels turns his lazy neck, 



UNCLE KUHLEBOKN. 333 

4 

and looking through the bars at you, your heart 
yearns toward MacWhirter, and you remp.nber the 
desert as an antediluvian existence. 

But the boy kneels again, and with firm fingers 
squeezes your arm slowly from the shoulder to the 
finger-tips. Then he proceeds along your legs. Firm- 
ly but gently at first, then more strongly kneading, 
and passes off at your fingers, cracking every joint, 
nor unmindful of the toes. He retires and leaves 
you to another interval of dreams, smoke, and sher- 
bet. The draperies are changed, again with sweet 
coolness in the changing. Finally, a strong man, 
Uncle Kiihleborn himself, kneels behind you seri- 
ously and lifts you up. He thrusts his arms under 
yours, and bends you ruthlessly backward and for- 
ward, straining and squeezing in every direction, 
forcing your body into postures which it can never 
know again, actually cracking your backbone, until 
seizing you quite ofi* the mattress, old Kiihleborn 
twists you upon his knee into an inextricable knot, 
then suffers you to fall exhausted upon the couch. 

It is the last stroke, the crown of delight. You 
exist in exquisite sensation, but are no longer con- 
scious of a body. You comprehend an " unbodied 
joy whose race is just begun." The cool, fragrant 
dimness permeates your frame. You fall softly in- 
to sleep as into an abyss of clouds. 



VIII. 



EXODUS. 

The poem of the traveller's life in Damascus thus 
sings itself in three cantos, the Bath, the Bazaar, and 
the Cafe. 

There are certain historical associations with the 
city of which you think little when you are there. 
The only one that you naturally remember, float? 
across your Cafe and Bath-dreams, because it is 
a reality of romance, as well as a fact of history, 
and it is, that in the defence of Damascus against 
the Crusader Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, Salah-ed- 
deen, or our familiar Saladin, first appeared in 
arms. 

Nor are the scriptural associations of Damascus 
especially prominent in your mind. You remember 
that as a town early mentioned in the Bible, it is 
reckoned the oldest of cities, and a hundred times a 
day your heart echoes to the sound of waters in 
the scriptural words, "Abana and Pharpar, rivers ol 
Damascus." And always, as you " arise and go in- 
to the street, which is called Straight," the imperial 



EXODUS. 



335 



figure of Paul accompanies you. But beyond these, 
the present interest and beauty of the city quite 
suffice. 

In its own religion, Damascus is famously ortho- 
dox. The Damascenes are fanatical, as are the Chris- 
tians in Rome ; and, as the latter treated the Jews 
as dogs, and shut them up nightly within the Ghet- 
to, so up to a very recent period, the Muslim in 
Damascus treated the Christians. This gives your 
sense of justice great satisfaction. You are glad to 
find the account of bigotry well balanced. Glad, 
perhaps, to discover that fanaticism is not confined 
to your own brethren in faith. 

Toleration is the great lesson of travel. As, in a 
small way, a man may mortify spiritual pride, by 
strolling on Sunday in a western city, from church 
to church, each of which is regarded by its sect as 
the true strait gate, so, in a large way, is he bene- 
fited by wintering in Rome and then shipping at 
Naples for the East. For thus he learns the truth 
emphasized with all magnificence, that neither upon 
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, is the only 
spot of worship. In Rome you have seen the pomp 
of the world's metropolis surrounding the Pope. 
In Damascus, the meanest beggar in the bazaar 
would spit upon the Pope with loathing. 

Cadaverous Calvin, also, burning Servetus, is an 



336 THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 

edifying subject of reflection, as you sip sherbet in 
Damascus. For you may well despair if the chains 
of prejudice are not somewhat loosened when you 
find yourself there. It certainly will not be neces- 
sary to elevate Islam above your own faith, or to 
wax melodious over the hareem. But, if you are a 
man, it will be necessary to recognize the imperial 
genius of the Prophet of the Saracens, and to be glad 
that to them was given a teacher after their kind. 
It will be also necessary 'to reflect, that the Eastern 
is a better Muslim, than the Western is Christian. 

Thinking these thoughts, you ride slowly out of 
Damascus, watching the stern Muslim eyes that 
look at you as you pass. It is a sunny May morn- 
ing, and the thought of looking for the last time 
upon a scene so strange and fair, touches it into 
stranger and fairer beauty. St. Peter guides us to 
the gate that opens toward the Lebanon. He 
stands in it and bows a smiling " huoii^ viaggio,^^ the 
last words he will ever speak for us, and the old 
Hebrew turns back again to his many heavens. 

We climb a space of the mountain, and Grolden 
Sleeve beckons to stop and look behind us. We do 
so. It is the famous view of Damascus from the 
Salaheeyah. 

Henceforth, when you are called to tell, as all 
travellers are, the most beautiful object you have 



EXODUS. 



337 



seen in your wanderings, you will answer, Damas- 
cus, from the Salaheeyah. Its delicate and fairy 
elegance cannot be described. Beside the dark 
green and the flashing minarets, there is all the 
detail, the exquisite intricacy of lines, which seduce 
the enamored eye to trace all their elaborations. 
So looked, to the Prophet's vision, the clustering 
graces of Paradise. I do not wonder that he passed 
and praised. But I do that he could pass and not 
enter. 

Higher you climb the steep mountain path, and 
higher. Farther removed, the beautiful vision quiv- 
ers, golden and green, a mirage upon the plain. A 
step — a turn — ^it has faded forever, and bare, mo- 
notonous mountains gloom around you. Winding 
lines of greenness mark the water-courses, and a 
few straggling, miserable huts are the signs of life. 
As if utterly to obliterate Damascus from recent 
experience, a cold wind blows bitterly through the 
mountain gorges, and, as we pause at evening, we 
are glad to creep into a house, and remember the 
*' Pearl of the East," as in January, June is remem- 
bered. 

Through cold morning showers, we are again 

upon our way. We climb and climb, still in a sad 

mountain region, and the chill day reminds us that 

this bright summer of eastern travel dniws to a close. 
15 



33S 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



Heedless of wind and rain, that thought is our 
grave companion through the Anti-Lebanon. And, 
as the lover of woods and fields, going down through 
crimson autumn to the winter, suddenly perceives 
in extreme October the ghost of June gliding over 
the landscape, pallid, and with misty mien — even 
the Indian summer, renewing the feeling, but not 
the form, of the vanished year — so we, with faces 
westward bent, leaving the romance of the East be- 
hind us, turn yet another page. For, as that after- 
noon, we crossed the ridge of the range, the noble 
panorama of the valley of the Bekaa, which sepa- 
rates the Anti-Lebanon from the Lebanon, unrolled 
beneath us. The range of the Lebanon towered 
along its farther side, like the Bernese Alps seen 
from the Jura over the valley of the Aar. 

As we skirted the mountain-side and descended, 
in the pensive glory of the waning day, we saw the 
six stately, solitary columns of Baalbec. Their 
countenance was " as Lebanon, excellent as the 
cedars," and naturally so ; for the Syrians assert that 
Baalbec is the house of the forest of Lebanon built 
by Solomon. 

The sun was setting, and its last light flashed far 
along the snowy peaks of the Lebanon, which rose 
sublime fron^the purple evening silence of the val- 
ley. At thW)wer end of the range which we had 



EXODUS. 



339 



just descended, the tawny Hermon crouched over 
the vale. Birds wheeled and darted around the 
exquisite portico of the temple. No triumph of art 
in my experience was profounder than that of Baal- 
bec in that moment ; for the melancholy ruins im- 
parted human grandeur to the sunset splendor of 
natare. 



IX. 



B AALBEC. 

Baalbec is the ecstacy of Corinthi&n architec- 
ture, and impressed by its grandeur and beauty, you 
remember, with a blessing, the Koman Emperor, 
Theodosius, I think, who forbade the Christian 
Bishop to destroy the Pagan temple, the gem of the 
Antoninian period. 

It is Roman, indeed ; dating, that is, from a 
thne when the prime of Greek art was long, long 
past, and when the East was Roman. Therefore it 
is not of the purest art. It has not the supreme 
excellence of the Parthenon, nor of the early Egyp- 
tian temples — each the perfection of their kind. 

But whether the inherent inspiration of the East 
forbade the erection of temples at the very foot of 
Lebanon, which had not some lingering spirit of the 
true Greek grace, or whether, as is most probable, 
they were reared by Grecian artists, in whom flick- 
ered yet some flame of the old Greek fire, yet the 
ruins of Baalbec are among the most perfect remains 
in the world. There is nothing in Rome itself so 



B AALBEC. 



341 



imposing, nothing which so nearly attains tnat spir- 
itual elegance of impression which marks Grreek 
architecture. 

The Roman character is impressed upon Baalbec, 
in the massiveness, not quite relieved into grace, of 
which it yet has the imperfect form, and wherein 
lies, as in all technical Roman architecture, the 
chief fault. The intrinsic success of the Egyptian 
architecture is in this, that it completely attains the 
massiveness at which it aims, and it implies and 
seeks nothing farther. The Greek, on the other 
hand, softens that strength, without losing it, into 
beauty. The Roman, attaining neither, like plated- 
ware grown old, is neither genuine silver nor re- 
spectable copper. Its strength is clumsy, not sub- 
lime ; its beauty is artificial, not sincere. 

The eclecticism of Rome pervaded every part of 
its development. The empire, like a vapor, spread 
over the earth, and like a vapor, it was variously 
tinged by the colored soils on which it rested. 
Rome was great only in overpowering might, in 
v/hat*, as characteristic of single men, we call phy- 
sical strength. Its intellectual, and artistic, and 
religious aspect was but an imitation of the Greek. 
It was not a development, as was Greek culture of 
the Egyptian ; but, lii^e all imitation, it was a de- 
cline. Rome was a gladiator, Greece was a poet. 



342 



THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 



And in that difference lies the difference of their in- 
fluence upon history. 

But here, in Baalbec, is a softer strain. The 
statue of the gladiator wins the eye, although the 
Apollo is unrivalled. And adding to the piciur- 
esque variety and intrinsic beauty of Baalbec, its 
superb landscape setting at the head of the valley 
of Bekaa, and to these, the romantic associations 
which cling around it and deepen its impression, 
even as clustering and waving vines wreathe with 
grace more delicate, the grace of sculpture, Baalbec 
stands forever in memory, as one of 'the truly im- 
posing relies of the world. 

The six solitary columns are its marked and re- 
memberable features. The temple in which are the 
niches for the idols is yet elegant, and still suggests 
the Syrian Baal, under which name our ever divine 
Apollo was worshipped. And well worshipped was 
he in this spacious valley, along whose floor he 
struck his glory, making perfect summer ; whose 
mountain walls he made his lyre, striking their 
snow-streaks with quivering light, like chords swept 
with trembling fingers, until all the loveliness of the 
plains and the loftiness of the hills flashed a sym- 
phony of splendor to the god of day. 

We stroll, musing, among the ruins. We have 
no compass or yardstick. We neither measure the 



BAALBEC. 



343 



columns, nor calculate the weight of the stones. 
Wood and Hawkins have exhausted that depart- 
ment, and Wood, the best authority on Baal bee, 
wonders that the Roman authors are so silent about 
it, and can find only in John of Antioch any mention 
of the temples. An image of the great temple ap- 
pears upon medals of Septimius Severus ; but An- 
toninus Pius is supposed to have built it. Sara- 
cens, Persians, Earthquakes, and Christians have 
raged against it. In the time of Heraclius, the Sa- 
racens captured it, and incredible riches rewarded 
them, and in the year 1401, Timour the Tartar 
smote the beauty of Baalbec. When he thundered* 
against it, it was called by the Greeks, Heliopolis, 
City of the Sun. And its vague fame shines through 
history, as I dreamed of beholding Jerusalem glitter 
among the Judean mountains. 

Listen for the last time in Syria, for the sounds 
which have long died away into the dumbness of 
antiquity, and you shall hear the hum of this city 
of Solomon, the great point of the highway from 
Tyre to India, when Zenobia's Palmyra was but a 
watering-station in the desert. Then, nearer, the 
clang of Roman arms and trumpets, the scream of 
the eagles of Augustus, and the peal of religious 
pomp around a temple dedicate to Jupiter, and 
ranking among the wonders of the world. Nearer 



344 



THE HOW ADJI IN SYRIA. 



still, the hushed cry of desert hordes of Bedoueen, 
of Persians, the muttering of Christian priests — 
shreds and fragments all of its old paean, one more 
death-struggle of another memorable life. 

The oriental authors praise Baalbec as the most 
splendid of Syrian cities, proud with palaces, grace- 
ful with gardens ; and with the tdumphant mien of 
imperial remembrance, it looks after you as you 
ride slowly down the valley of the Bekaa, and its 
glance leaves in your mind a finer strain in your 
respect for Rome. 

All day it watches you ; all day you turn in your 
saddle as you advance through the valley which has 
Egyptian war-mth of climate, and in which water 
never stagnates, and look back upon the six stately 
columns. All the men in the valley salute you. Even 
the women are less chary of their charms, and when 
the tent is pitched at evening, and Leisurlie begin 
to sketch, the children crowd around and look 
wonderingly upon his work and its results. But, 
if he attempt to draw them, the handsome boys 
bound away, because he looks at them, and only 
the unhandsome remain. 

But one stands leaning against a tree at a little 
distance, heedless of his fellows and of the Howadji. 
The pensive grace of his posture, the dark beauty 
of his face, and the suppleness of his limbs, arrest 



BAALBEC. 



345 



the artist's eye. He sketches him, and a figure 
more graceful than the Apollino has justified art 
and asserted nature upon the twilight plain of Baal- 
bec, whose columns glimmer and fade in the distance 
and the dark. 
15* 



X. 



NUNC DIMITTIS. 

The Arabian poets sing truly of Lebanon, that he 
bears winter upon his head, spring upon his shoul- 
ders, and autumn in his bosom, while summer lies 
sleeping at his feet. 

Up from that summer, Baalbec its last blossom 
for us, the Howadji sadly climbed. The mountain- 
sides were terraced to the highest practicable point, 
and planted in grain. But, wherever the sun favors, 
the lustrous vines lie along the ground, goldening 
and ripening the life that is immortal in the vi?io d''oro 
of the Lebanon. The path is thronged with laden 
mules coming from Beyrout. The sun blisters our 
faces. They are set westward now, but our hearts 
cling to the sleeping summer at the feet of Leba- 
non. 

At noon the ridge is passed, and we look toward 
the sea. The broad valleys and deep gorges of the 
mountains open themselves to the illimitable West, 



NUNC DIMITTIS. 



347 



which streams into them full of promise and the 
sun. Lebanon is a country, rather than a mountain, 
and our way is not a swift descent, but a slow de- 
cline. Little villages are perched upon various 
points, and a Druse woman passes, crowned with 
the silver horn. Across a broad ravine, miles away, 
we see as the westering sun slants down the moun- 
tain, a melancholy fortified old building, and remem- 
ber Lady Hester Stanhope. But there is no longer 
eagerness in our glances, and there is profound sad- 
ness in our hearts. 

In a golden sunset, the tent was pitched for 
the last time, upon a high mountain point, 
overlooking the sea. As we watched the darken- 
ing Mediterranean, from a little gray village high 
upon a cliff beyond, fell the sweet music of the 
evening bell. 

It was the knell of the East. Sweet and clear it 
rang far down the dark calm of the valley, and out 
upon the evening sea. The glory of oriental travel 
was a tale told. The charm of nomadic life was 
over. Like youth, that travel and charm come but 
once, and because the East is the most picturesque 
scene of travel possible to us, the moon in rising 
over our last camp, and flowing dreamily over the 
placid slopes of the Lebanon, was but the image 
of memory, which steeps the East forever in pensive 



348 



THE HOWADJI IN SYEIA. 



twilight. So finally lie in toe mind all lands we have 
seen. The highest value of travel is not the accu- 
mulation of facts, but the perception of their sig- 
nificance. It is not the individual pictures and 
statues we saw in Italy, nor the elegance of Paris, 
nor the comfort of England, nor the splendor of the 
Orient in detail, which are permanently valuable. 
It is the breadth they give to experience, the more 
reasonable faith they inspire in the scope of human 
genius, the dreamy distances of thought with which 
they surround life. In the landscape which we en- 
joy as a varied whole, what do we care for the 
branching tree or the winding river, although we 
know that without tree and river there would be 
no landscape ? When Italy, and Syria, and Greece, 
have become thoughts in your mind, then you have 
truly travelled. 

The next morning, under the mulberries and over 
the stones, we descended to Beyrout, and it was 
startling to feel how suddenly the spell was broken. 
A few fat Franks, and a few sailors, and a few bales 
of cotton, and much sea-port stench, and the mon- 
grel population of a Levantine city, dissolve the 
dream. Strange in Beyrout is the image of the 
East, in its still picturesqueness, in its placid 
repose. A few turbans and snowy beards glide 
spectrally among the hogsheads and boxes, like 



NUNC DIMITTIS. 349 

• 

the fair forms of dreams lingering upon the awak- 
ening eye, among the familiar furniture of the 
chamber. 

Yet Beyrout is built upon a long and lovely 
slope of the Lebanon, and has fine gardens and 
trellissed balconies overhanging its most summer 
sea. There, on some enchanted morning, you may 
inhale for the last time the fragrant Shiraz, taste the 
last sherbet of roses, and be lost once more in 
the syren's song. 

But some May evening, as you recede over that 
summer sea, and watch the majesty of Lebanon rob- 
ing itself in purple darkness, and, lapsing deeper 
into memory, behold the dreamy eyes of Khadra, 
and the widowed "Joy of the Earth," and the "De- 
light of the Imagination," and the " Pearl of the 
East," until night and the past have gently with- 
drawn Syria from your view, do you sigh that the 
East can be no longer a dream but a memory, do 
you feel that the rarest romance of travel is now 
truly ended, do you grieve that no wealth of expe- 
rience equals the dower of hope, and say in your 
heart — 

" What's won is done, Joy's soul lies in the doing !" 

— Or as a snow-peak of Lebanon glances through 
the moonlight like a star, do you fear lest the poet 



/ 




350 



THE HOWADJI 



IN SYRIA. 



sang more truly than he knew, and in another 
sense, 



" The youth who farther from the East 
Mast travel, still is Nature's priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended, 
Until the man perceives it die away 
And fade into the light of common day." 



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